Elite flies from "Čenej" – first airplanes to take off from airport in Novi Sad in 2012

Construction of civil airport in Čenej is again, after a decade, in the focus of the public. The plans will be supplemented next month and, finally, their realization will start. According to the plan of the city administration of Aero Club "Novi Sad", the first airplanes could take off already in 2012. The officials point out that the airport in Čenej is not going to be a competition to Airport "Nikola Tesla" in Belgrade. The Čenej-based airport, which exists for more than 50 years, has, so far, been used exclusively by sports and agricultural airplanes.

Siniša Bubnjević, a member of the City Traffic Council, said after the meeting with the representatives of AC "Novi Sad" that the capital city of the Province should be the carrier of the project and, according to the plan, it should run the airport, which will be formed as a public or stock company.

- We are going to work hard on the realization of the project – Bubnjević announced.

- The Province is also interested in construction of the civil airport in Čenej. In order for the airport to have a runway, between 1,600 and 2,000 meters long, it is necessary to parcel out the land and decide if additional land should be bought or the existing one replaced. That will be the task of the City Development Institute.

According to Bubnjević’s words, the new airport will be used not only by sports and agricultural, but also by private light passenger airplanes with 40 seats.

Future airport will be built in several phases. The first one will include construction of runway and tower, which will make it possible for “Čenej” to be put into operation. Then the reconstruction of the existing administrative building with flight control center will follow. Also, forming of the customs and police service is in the pipeline, which will enable the airport to operate independently in the international civil air transportation sector.

According to the first unofficial estimates, 5m EUR should be provided for realization of the entire old-new project.

- Our plan is to make “Čenej” an airport of "C" category - Mirko Majstorović, the Director of Aero Club "Novi Sad", explains.

- The ten-year-old project will be, once again, thoroughly examined by the experts in order for the terrain for the new runway to be adequately prepared. The documentation must be updated and a business plan is to be made. The fact is, certainly, that Novi Sad needs one such airport.

Once the airport in Čenej is adapted for civil air transportation, bringing of “low-cost” companies, which transport passengers all around Europe for 20 to 100 EUR per flight, will be enabled.

The airports that are nearest to Novi Sad are "Nikola Tesla" and airports in Budapest and Zagreb, and it takes both money and time to reach them.

PROMOTIVE FLIGHT

The idea that the Čenej-based airport gets the passenger rank was also promoted four years ago. The city authorities marked that as priority at that time, but they did nothing to make that possible. On that occasion, a promotive flight was organized at the end of May 2004 and an airplane from Podgorica successfully landed on the runway in Čenej.