Validation date: 19 10 2015
Updated on: 15 06 2017
Views: 3362
See on the interactive map:
40°52'04"N 009°30'00"E
Runway: 07/25 - 1375x30m - Asphalt
Olbia Venafiorita airfield (Italian: aeroporto di Olbia-Venafiorita, ICAO: LIEV) was an airfield on the north side of Sardinia.
Olbia Venafiorita was the first airfield to serve the city of Olbia, having opened on 15 May 1927, just before the Olbia Idroscalo.
During World War II the airfield was used by Italian Air Force Macchi MC-202 and Luftwaffe Bf109 fighters and Luftwaffe Me323s Gigant transport aircraft of 3 Staffel (squadron) of the I./TG 5 (Transportgeschwader 5). Due to allied bombing the infrastructure was severely damaged, but postwar it began to function again, even serving the Italian mainland. In 1964 it became the seat of regional airline Alisarda of Karim al-Husayni, better known as Imam Aga Khan IV, and the decision was made to extend the runway.
During the first year of activity, Alisarda carried 186 passengers in their piston engined Beechcraft 8 'Twin Beech'.
In 1966, their first year of operations as a scheduled carrier, 662 commercial flights, totalling 957 hours of flight and carrying 5.640 passengers, were performed on the Olbia-Rome Fiumicino-Olbia route. From May that year, two Nord 262 aircraft began servicing the line Olbia-Milan Linate-Olbia. The more modern twin turboprops were capable of carrying 26 passengers. In 1968, the airline added another destination, Nice in southern France, for which two Fokker F.27s were acquired. 1971 saw the addition of a service to Turin and a year later Genoa, Bologna and Pisa were added to the network, as was a third Fokker F.27.
The increase in air traffic and the size of what was not the most adequate infrastructure led to the decision to dispose of the airfield and the opening of a more modern and functional airport (Olbia Costa Smeralda) around 1974.
Many of the airfield structures were partially or wholly demolished in an effort to recover led in 1976, when world prices for led peaked. Still, the airfield was not wholly abandoned, nor demolished: to this day, part of the airfield's platform serves as a heliport for the 10° Nucleo elicotteri Carabinieri (10th Carabinieri Helicopter Unit). The remainder is abandoned, but given it has not seen use in 40 years, it is still remarkably intact.
Sheep wandering on the platform in January 2008 (aviazionecivile.org)
Overview of the airfield in 2014 (Google Earth)
Olbia Venafiorita 
Olbia Venafiorita