Reconstruction and Renovation

Recommended service:
online dating alert signals

The Nicelli Airport complex was also involved in World War II. The workshops and the airport were militarized along with the rest of the Italian national airline.
The planes and personnel were incorporated into the Servizi Aerei Speciali (SAS), a large unit of the air force created to ensure the connections with the most distant fronts, including Eastern Africa, the Balkans, Russia, and the islands in the Aegean, so that isolated detachments could be resupplied and wounded soldiers could be transported back to Italy. During the early days of the conflict, Umberto Klinger (who received five silver medals during the war), serving as a pilot with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, established the first wartime connections with Amedeo, Duke of Aosta and Viceroy of Ethiopia, reaching Addis Abeba on night flights that were largely over enemy-controlled territory. He then became commander of the 114th Long-Range Bomber Group and Chief of the General Staff of the SAS, during a period in which the unit was entrusted with the dramatic task of resupplying Italy’s final stand in Tunisia.

In 1947, after a few short-lived attempts air transport at Nicelli was finally reinitiated and stabilized. That same year, Alberto Briganti, the General of the Air Squadron and the driving force behind the revival of civil aviation in the post-World War II period, inaugurated the first Rome-Venice-Rome flight, completed by the company Linee Aeree Italiane (LAI). Briganti’s presence at this event was not by chance – it emphasized the importance of the occasion, as well as Briganti’s personal connection to the city, which started during World War I when he was a young seaplane pilot stationed at the San Andrea base. That same year, Klinger received a request to rebuild the Lido workshops that were destroyed during the war, a request advanced by workers who valued his entrepreneurial nature and his social spirit. The project was put into motion when the government offered Klinger the opportunity to take over the dilapidated industrial facilities owned by the national airline. Leveraging his unusual entrepreneurial experience and his limited economic resources, Klinger purchased what remained of the old buildings and after a series of difficulties created the Officine Aeronavali di Venezia (OAN). The manufacturing company, which employed 500 people, was a source of employment and training for many veterans and youths during a period in which unemployment was a major problem for Italy and for Lido in particular. Over the long term, the OAN was a source of professional pride for many workers and also sustained their families, a fact that many of their descendants still remember today. The company’s early years were not easy.

Klinger’s pre-war connections enabled him to make agreements with Egyptian authorities for the recovery of airplanes abandoned by the Americans as war surplus in the desert near Cairo. After initial, cursory repairs were performed, the planes were flown to San Nicolò for more extensive overhauls and then sold to companies on several continents. Once the difficult initial phase had been overcome, the skill and enthusiasm of the managers and workers made Aeronavali an industrial centre that was internationally famous for the variety and quality of their activities, which ranged from servicing and refitting large airplanes to manufacturing parts for aircraft and airport facilities. OAN’s work was highly esteemed in international aeronautics circles, and for a few years the Lido airport was filled with planes, pilots and managers from companies from many different countries. Companies from at least three continents as well as intergovernmental agencies and the Italian armed forces turned to the OAN in Lido for advice. Klinger’s dynamism, connected to air transport by tradition and expertise, made OAN a promotional centre for four airlines: the Egyptian company SAIDE, the Lebanese company LIA, and the Italian companies SAM, in agreement with Alitalia, and Aeralpi; the latter was a pioneering promoter of regional air transport.

Towards the end of the 1950s a proposed project to build a new, larger airport inland prompted a discussion on Nicelli Airport’s future role. As Nicelli was not capable of receiving large jet aircraft, it was necessary for the airline companies and for OAN itself to have longer runways and increased surface areas. (B.D.)

Collaborazione per la parte storica dell'Associazione Amici Dell'Aeroporto G. Nicelli Elaborazione testi e selezione immagini a cura di Bruno Delisi e di Franco Briganti. Si ringraziano per la disponibilità gli archivi Aerofan, Caproni, Briganti, Klinger, Morandi e OAN