In 1912, the Air Command, the first aerial unit of the Kingdom of Serbia's military, was established in Niš, and a site near the village of Trupale, 8 kilometres away from the town, was selected as the site of the first airport. Construction began in 1923 on a new airport, located in Medoševac, where the airport is currently located. Ahead of the founding of Yugoslavia's national airline, Niš was designated in plans from 1927 as a stop on one of the highest-priority routes. In 1935, Aeroput included a stop in Niš on flights between Belgrade and Skopje. Following World War II, the airport was used as a military base. Among other units, it was a base for the 63rd Paratroop Brigade and 119th Aviation Brigade. A portion of the airport is still used by the Serbian Air Force and Air Defence. In 1952, at the site of today's airport, the first concrete runway, measuring 1,500 m (4,921 ft), was built and used for military flights. In order to maintain the pace with the development of military as well as civil aircraft, in 1972 the length of the runway was extended to 2,200 m (7,218 ft) to accommodate larger contemporary commercial aircraft. In the 1970s, the airport was used for occasional service to the Adriatic coast. By the 1980s, this occasional service led the local authorities to recognize the needs of the people living in Niš as well as Southern and Eastern Serbia and took into account the economic development of the city. The association of economic and political entities prepared detailed terms and in 1986 made a decision on establishing the entity "Airport Niš". The terminal building as well as the ancillary support facilities were built and opened to service in 1986. This project also included the asphalt coated runway and built-in system of lights that provided visual descent guidance during runway approaches at night. The development of air traffic in Niš was not initiated just by JAT Yugoslav Airlines, but also by Slovenian company Inex-Adria Airways (Adria Airways nowadays), although both were domestic airlines back then. The Breakup of Yugoslavia at the beginning of the 1990s brought a sharp decrease in travelling to the Adriatic Sea, Ljubljana and Zagreb, once the busiest routes from Niš. This was followed by United Nations sanctions imposed on Serbia and Montenegro which included a ban on international air travel. In these circumstances the volume of traffic reached its lowest point with the only route being to Tivat Airport during the summer period. In 1998, the traffic volume increased owing to the heavy air traffic from Pristina International Airport which was out of use because of numerous foggy days during which the traffic was successfully carried out from Niš. The airport was heavily damaged during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The airport was reopened in 2003 with the financial assistance from the government of Norway. Damage sustained during the bombing was repaired, including the building of a new control tower and renewal of the terminal building. In 2004, Jat Airways and Montenegro Airlines resumed flights from Niš to Zürich, Paris, and Tivat. In 2010, Wind Jet connected the airport with Forlì, Italy while Montenegro Airlines linked it with Podgorica on a daily basis. The route to Podgorica was discontinued in 2013 because of low passenger numbers. For more than two years (2014–2015) there were only charter flights to and from Niš. The expansion in traffic began in 2015 when low-cost airline Wizz Air launched flights to Basel and Malmö. In 2016, Ryanair announced flights to Berlin, marking the airlines entry into the Serbian market. Later that year both Wizz Air and Ryanair announced more flights from Niš, respectively Wizz Air to Dortmund, Eindhoven, Memmingen and Ryanair to Weeze, Milan Bergamo and Bratislava. In the first 8 months of 2016 Niš experienced triple-digit growth in passenger traffic.