Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Federico Fellini International Airport (LIPR) serves Rimini and the Republic of San Marino from the coastal suburb of Miramare in Emilia-Romagna. Home to a single long paved runway equipped with ILS, it has a rich history stretching from a 1929 grass strip through Cold War military service to today's low-cost and charter operations. For a VFR pilot it offers a well-equipped Adriatic coastal destination with full instrument approach capability.
Federico Fellini International Airport, commonly known as Rimini Airport, lies in the Miramare district south-east of Rimini's city centre in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy. Named after the Rimini-born film director Federico Fellini, it is operated by AIRiminum 2014 SpA and serves as the main air gateway not only for the Province of Rimini but also for the nearby Republic of San Marino. For a simulator pilot the field is notable both for its long, ILS-equipped runway and for its layered history as a civil airfield, a major Cold War military base, and now a leisure-travel airport on the Adriatic riviera.
The airport sits in the frazione of Miramare, about 5.2 kilometres south-east of Rimini's city centre and close to Riccione, on the Adriatic coast of Emilia-Romagna. It lies within Italian controlled airspace served by Romagna Approach, reflecting its status as a significant regional aerodrome with an associated control zone around the field.
The airport has a single physical runway, 13/31, a hard-surfaced, lit strip of roughly 8,800 feet in length (recorded as 8,689 feet on runway 13 and 8,813 feet on runway 31). The runway is equipped with an instrument landing system, making it suitable for instrument approaches in addition to visual operations. Field elevation is 26 feet above mean sea level.
Air traffic services are provided by Romagna Approach, contactable on 136.23 MHz and on 118.15 MHz. Ground movement and clearance delivery are handled on 121.6 MHz (callsign GCCD), while the Tower operates on 119.1 MHz. The runway's ILS provides an instrument approach aid for pilots flying to LIPR in poor visibility.
The site has military aviation roots dating to the First World War, when it hosted the Rimini-Riccione Defence Section of the Aeronautical Service between 1916 and 1918. The airfield proper was built in 1929 with a single 500-metre dirt runway laid perpendicular to the coastline, and an aviation club was formed soon after opening. Scheduled passenger service began on 17 August 1929 with a thrice-weekly summer route to Milan operated by Avio Linee Italiane, and by 1931 the field was a stopover on the Rome-London route, with further services to Venice, Vienna, Munich and Brindisi. A military and aerostatic facility was developed through the early 1930s and became operational in November 1937; on 28 March 1938 the airport was dedicated as a military airfield and named after Giannetto Vassura, a First World War pilot from Cotignola killed during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. From July 1939 an overnight service allowed Milan business travellers to spend a day on Rimini's beaches. The airport suffered heavy bombardment during the Second World War and was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for Allied troops; during the Battle of Rimini, German forces defended it with Panther tank turrets as part of the Gothic Line, with the Greek 3rd Mountain Brigade and the 18th New Zealand Armoured Regiment engaged in its capture. After capture it continued as a POW camp, at one point holding up to 80,000 Axis prisoners, from which Ardeatine massacre perpetrator Erich Priebke notably escaped. In July 1956 the airfield became home to the Italian Air Force's 5th Aerobrigade, and through the Cold War it grew into a major NATO installation housing up to 2,000 Italian airmen and several hundred allied troops, reportedly including thirty B61 nuclear bombs, and was regarded by the Warsaw Pact as a strategic target. The base hosted the 5th Aerobrigade until 2010. Civil traffic grew strongly through the 1960s on the strength of beach tourism, though the opening of the A14 motorway in 1966 reduced passenger demand. Since the end of the Cold War the airport has been particularly popular with travellers from the former Soviet Union, a market disrupted by the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The airport is operated by AIRiminum 2014 SpA, which took over management after the bankruptcy of the previous operating company and reopened the field in 2014. It functions today as an international airport handling scheduled low-cost and charter passenger traffic serving the Rimini riviera and San Marino. Helicopters of the Italian Army's 7th Army Aviation Regiment
