The Italian Aerospace Information Web
by Aeromedia - corso Giambone 46/18 - 10135 Torino (Italy)
Closed for One Year the Aosta Airport
On June 16, 2008, the runway of the Aosta “Corrado Gex” Airport, in North-West Italy, will be closed due to extensive expansion works announced in 2006. Consequently all fixed-wing aircraft based at Aosta will move to other airports awaiting the airport re-opening, expected in May, 2009. In particular, the Aero Club Valle d’Aosta will continue its fixed-wing training activity at the nearby Biella and Turin/Aeritalia airports. The gliding activity, instead, will be hosted by the Sion airport, in Switzerland.
Aosta-based Air Vallée, a regional carrier equipped with two Fairchild Dornier 328-300’s, will reshape its network, including the opening of a new Turin-Olbia (Sardinia) week-end service during the 2008 Summer Season. The works at Aosta airport will not interrupt the current helicopter activity of Helops, a local operator, and by the Heli-Ambulance and Rescue Services.
In the meantime, lying alongside the fence of the Aosta airport, the remains of a majestic Douglas DC-6, a piston-engined passenger transport of the ‘Fifties, have been noted. In fact it is a historical aircraft, manufactured in 1950, used by LAI and Alitalia till mid ‘Sixties, then sold to the Italian Air Force which used it – coded 31-26 - as a VIP transport. It is understood that the relic, after some sort of reassemby, will be used by the local Firefighter Corps for training activities.
In the picture: The remains of Douglas DC-6 31-26, a former Italian Air Force aircraft, at Aosta, Italy, in May 2008. (Aeromedia)
(Aeromedia, May 2008)