Berne Airport

Location
Opened in 1929, the airport is about 10 km or 8 miles southeast of Bern inner city and about 3 km or 1 mile north of Belp. Motorists please use the motorway 6 exit 14 (Rübingen) or the motorway 12 exit 12 (Bern-Bümpliz) to reach the airport.

Between Bern station and the airport a regular bus service is operated by the number 334 bus. Between Belp and the airport the number 160 bus operates a regular service. The S-Bahn 3 Bern-Thun) also stops at the station 4 km or 2 miles from the Terminal. All current timetable details are available online or locally.

History
The beginnings of aviation began in Bern began very early on. In October 1910 an aviation exhibition was already held in Bern accompanied by a large air show on the second weekend in October. The grass runway then was still to be found in Beudenfeld on the commons. It quickly became clear that this area was completely unsuitable for a major airport due to the poor infrastructure and the former Bernese Flight Commission therefore decided to build a runway and landing strip on a large flat grassy area at Belpmoos. Within a short time, the airfield was approved for civil and commercial aviation and there was nothing to prevent flights form taking off and landing in Bern.

In the spring of 1929, a commission of rich Bernese merchants, politicians and hotel operators decided at a meeting to establish an airport cooperative which was to then take care of the business affairs of the airfield. After only one day of negotiations, the airport company ALPAR was formally established on 6 March 1929. At the same time an airline was also established and only three months later, on 8 June, the first commercial air service was launched from Bern to Basel Biel. The official opening ceremony was not held on that day, but a month later on 14th July 1929. Until the outbreak of World War II, the Bernese airline continuously expanded their flight routes. Shortly before the war began, civilian flights were disrupted and the airport was handed over to the Swiss army. Immediately after World War II, ALPAR took over again and even used their own built aircraft on flights to international destinations until the former Swiss Council which was responsible for the running of the airport decided to use Zurich Airport for international destinations.

From then on, Bern airport was only used for domestic Swiss destinations. In 1950 the Airport Authority ALPAR was finally transformed into a corporation with the same name. At the end of the seventies, the airport no longer met international standards and the ALPAR applied for a government loan of almost 9 million Swiss francs to modernise the airport facilities. In 1987, this money was used to equip the 1,200-meter-long hard surface runway with an instrument landing system, which was to provide for more operational reliability. Since then, the airport has been operated without the help of public money by the ALPAR.