Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Forlì Airport, known locally as Aeroporto Luigi Ridolfi, lies just outside the city of Forlì in Emilia-Romagna, close to the Via Emilia and the A14 motorway corridor linking Bologna and the Adriatic coast. It offers a single long, lit, hard-surfaced runway with an ILS, making it a straightforward and well-equipped destination for VFR and IFR visitors alike, and it remains an active centre for pilot and air traffic control training.
Forlì Airport, officially Aeroporto Internazionale di Forlì - "L. Ridolfi", sits on the eastern edge of the Emilia-Romagna plain a short distance from the city of Forlì itself. Named after the Italian aviator Luigi Ridolfi, it has passed through several operating companies and periods of reduced activity over the years, and today combines limited scheduled and charter passenger services with a significant role in pilot and air traffic control training, making it an interesting and well-served stop for the visiting simulator pilot.
The airport lies in northern Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, close to the Via Emilia (SS9) national road and the A14 motorway, a few kilometres from the centre of Forlì. It sits within the area worked by Romagna Approach, which also serves the nearby coastal airports of Rimini and, further west, Bologna; pilots routing to or from Forlì should expect to be worked by this approach service well before joining.
Forlì has a single physical runway, 12/30, of hard surface construction and lit for night operations. The published length is approximately 8,369 feet on the 12 threshold, with a Category III(b) capable instrument landing system serving runway 12; the 30 direction is listed with a slightly shorter usable length of around 7,886 feet, reflecting a displaced or different landing distance available on that end. Field elevation is 92 feet.
Aircraft in the Forlì area work Romagna Approach, callsign ROMAGNA APP, on 37.975 MHz or 118.15 MHz, before contacting Forlì Tower on 118.95 MHz for the aerodrome itself. Runway 12 is equipped with an ILS, and the airport was upgraded to Category III(b) approach capability in 2016, allowing operations in low visibility.
The airport lies immediately alongside the Via Emilia and close to the A14 motorway, both useful linear features for orientation when approaching from the Bologna or Rimini directions. The city of Forlì itself, a short distance to the northwest of the field, and the broader Romagna coastal strip beyond it provide further reference for pilots inbound from the Adriatic side.
The airport was originally established as Luigi Ridolfi Airport and was dedicated before the Second World War by Benito Mussolini, who had been born in the nearby town of Predappio. In March 2013 the field was closed after a shortage of Jet-A fuel, and its then management company, SEAF S.p.A., was subsequently declared bankrupt. ENAC, Italy's civil aviation authority, ran a tender for a new operator, backed by government figures including the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, and in September 2014 a thirty-year concession was awarded to a consortium trading as Air Romagna S.p.A. Under this new administration the airport's general aviation operations were restructured from 2016, with efforts from 2017 onward to attract charter and scheduled airline traffic. Over the years the field has seen a changing roster of carriers, including Wizz Air, which later withdrew, and Wind Jet, which moved its operations to nearby Rimini Airport in March 2011 before ceasing trading. Ryanair also operated from Forlì to destinations such as London-Stansted and Frankfurt-Hahn before shifting its Emilia-Romagna base to Bologna.
Since 2018 the airport has been run by a new operating company, and Ryanair currently offers services to Cagliari and Palermo, with a seasonal London-Stansted route due to begin in June 2026. Beyond scheduled traffic, Forlì is notable as a training hub, hosting ENAV's air navigation and air traffic control school and ENAC pilot and cabin crew training facilities, as well as advanced aircraft certification and maintenance training; it has also attracted civilian drone manufacturing and an aviation and aerospace business incubator. New terminal development at the airport is being designed around renewable and low-carbon materials, with older fossil-fuel ground equipment being phased out in favour of electric vehicles.