History
History of the airport Ulan-Ude has began in 1925, when on the flat ground of the airdrome the first aircrafts of pilots Volkovoinov M.A. and Polyakov I.K. landed. They were participants of Moscow-Bejin flight.
In may of 1926 a committee of the All-Russian “Dobrolet” established in Verkhneudinsk a group of aviators, who had supplied the flights of the detectable Buryat-Mongolian airline Verhneudisk – Urga (now Ulan-Ude – Ulan-Bator).
That was the first aviation group established in a huge territory of Siberia and Far East.
On the 1st of August 1926 a regular air passenger communication between Verhneudisk and Urga (Mongolia) was opened. 500 km distance was covered just by 4.5 hours. Aircrafts, flying on the main air routes Moscow – Vladivistok, Irkutsk – Chita, had began to land at the airport of Verhneudisk. Increased traffic required a construction of a new building.
In March of 1931 in Verhneudinsk they began to build new airdrome on the left bank of the Selenga river.
On the 2d of July 1934 a collective of Buryat-Mongolian air-line was transformed to the special air transport unit.
By the beginning of the World War II the enterprise had modern aviation equipment and professional staff.
In the beginning of 1950s Buryatia airport infrastructure had moved to a new level. In 1950-60s the enterprise exploited aircrafts AN-2, IL-14, Yak-12, AN-24, L-410, helicopters MI-2, MI-4, MI-8.
In 1971 there was a reconstruction of artificial runway in the airport Ulan-Ude.
In 1983 a new airport terminal with the capacity 400 people per hour was opened. Since that, flights on passenger aircraft Tu-154 began. More than 800 thousand people had been served through the airport in 1990.
On the 1st of July 2001 the enterprise was divided in some independent companies and as a result “International airport Ulan-Ude” JSC was established. It included also the local airlines airports: Nizhneangarsk, Taksimo, Bagdarin.
The airport Ulan-Ude cooperated with the biggest freight passenger services of Russia and was used by many air companies as a intermediate flight stop for a further way to the South-East Asia, China.
In 2007 a reconstruction of the runway was finished and made it possible to accept and serve any types of aircrafts practically without take-off weight restrictions. Besides, new lighting OVI-1 was assembled. Due to that fact the airport resumed reception of aircrafts at night. Since 2007 a sole shareholder of the airport is Austrian company “MeinAirportsInternational”,which invests into development of Central Asia and West Europe and Russia airports.
In May 2011 International Airport Baikal has become a member of Metropol Group of Companies.
For 30 years work the airport of Ulan-Ude has a splendid statistics of flight safety.
