Bastia Airport
Bastia – Poretta Airport (IATA: BIA, ICAO: LFKB) is an airport serving Bastia on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. It is located 17 km (11 mi) south-southeast of Bastia at Lucciana, both of which are communes of the Upper Corsica department.
![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Borgo_Airfield_-_Corsica_-_15_Aug_1944_-Nat_Archives.png/200px-Borgo_Airfield_-_Corsica_-_15_Aug_1944_-Nat_Archives.png)
Airphoto of Borgo Airfield, 15 August 1944. Note the large number of B-17s on the parking apron, probably used during the Invasion of Southern France.
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Borgo_Airfield_-_Corsica_-_15_Aug_1944_-Nat_Archives.png/200px-Borgo_Airfield_-_Corsica_-_15_Aug_1944_-Nat_Archives.png)
In 1944, during World War II, the airport was used by the United States Army Air Forces Twelfth Air Force. On 31 July 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the legendary French pilot, took off from this airport and disappeared, on a reconnaissance flight over France in a Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
USAAF combat units assigned:
- 414th Night Fighter Squadron, (Twelfth Air Force), 5 February–July 1944; 5 September – 13 October 1944, Bristol Beaufighter
- 527th Fighter Squadron, 86th Fighter Group, (Twelfth Air Force), 12 July-23 September 1944, P-47 Thunderbolt
- 416th Night Fighter Squadron, (Twelfth Air Force), 14–23 August 1944, P-61 Black Widow
- 417th Night Fighter Squadron, (Twelfth Air Force), February–April 1944; 25 April – 7 September 1944, Bristol Beaufighter
- 5th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, (3d Reconnaissance Group), 11 July – 24 September 1944, P-38/F-5 Lightning
- 23rd Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron, (3d Reconnaissance Group), 11 July – 24 September 1944, P-38/F-5 Lightning
- 111th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, (XII Tactical Air Command), 21 July – 27 August 1944, P-51/F-6 Mustang
- 42nd Bombardment Wing was headquartered at the airfield, 21 September – 24 November 1944.
Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Bastia – Poretta airport:
Airlines | Destinations |
---|---|
Air Corsica | Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris–Orly Seasonal: Charleroi, Dole, Toulon |
Air France | Paris–Orly |
easyJet | Seasonal: Basel/Mulhouse, Bordeaux, Geneva, Lisbon, London–Gatwick, Lyon, Paris–Charles de Gaulle |
Eurowings | Seasonal: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Nuremberg (begins 29 June 2024), Stuttgart |
Lufthansa | Seasonal: Frankfurt, Munich |
Luxair | Seasonal: Luxembourg |
Norwegian Air Shuttle | Seasonal: Copenhagen, Stockholm–Arlanda |
Transavia | Seasonal: Brest, Gothenburg, Rotterdam/The Hague |
Volotea | Seasonal: Bordeaux, Brest, Caen, Lille, Lyon, Montpellier, Nantes, Strasbourg, Toulouse |
Statistics
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Annual passenger traffic at BIA airport.
See Wikidata query.