Sarajevo International Airport and EYOF – significance

Organization of big events, important for Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, always includes hard work and dedication not visible to participants, visitors and audience in general that follow the events. When everything is over it is time to sum up and analyse ll activities that were taken. If we comment on the recently organized European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) that gathered more than 1.000 athletes from 46 European countries, it should be emphasized that Sarajevo International Airport significantly contributed to organization of this event.
Most of contestants, members of national teams, representatives of international sport federations, as well as numerous technical staff attending the festival, arrived to Sarajevo via Sarajevo Airport. The Airport was actively involved in preparation of the infrastructure and necessary human and physical resources from the very beginning of organization of the event.
The staff members of Sarajevo Airport performing ground handling of aircraft, passengers and baggage got deeply involved both on scheduled and chartered flights. During the days when participants were arriving and departing, in addition to scheduled flights there were also 7 chartered ones. The ground handling the athletes and their equipment was organized in such a way to go faster and smoothly, with no delays. Actually, for specific purpose of EYOF a special regime of passenger ground handling was established - 2 spaces with 4 mobile counters were adjusted for passenger ground handling with all necessary infrastructure. The ground handling also included a high degree of security controls and screening. Regarding baggage, our staff handled 55.000 kg of mostly bulky baggage that requires special ways of handling due to its size.
All these activities required additional efforts of SIA employees but also those of the Administration for indirect taxation and members of BiH Border Police Unit. The role of being the first point of contact with Sarajevo and BiH was obviously taken seriously and justified in full. We could proudly add: „As it has always been so far“.