on a horse-racing track called Deli Renvereeniging and were greeted by the Sultan of Deli, Sulaiman Syaiful Alamsyah. After this first landing, the Assistant Resident of Eastern Sumatra C.S. Van Kempen urged the Netherlands East Indies administration in Batavia to allocate the necessary funding to finish the airport at Polonia. In 1928 the airport was officially opened which was marked with the landing of six aircraft owned by KNILM, (not a subsidiary of KLM) on a temporary hardened dirt runway. From 1930, KLM and KNILM started expanding its network to Medan. It was only in 1936 that the airport's 600-metre permanent runway was finished. In 1975, according to a joint decree issued by the Department of Defence and Security, Department of Transportation, and Department of Finance, the airport was jointly managed between the Indonesian Air Force and the Civil Aviation. From 1985, according to the Government Regulation No. 30-year 1975, the management became the responsibility of Perum Angkasa Pura which subsequently became PT Angkasa Pura II (Persero) after 1 January 1994. Polonia Airport is now closed to commercial aviation and replaced by Kualanamu International Airport. The airport's last arrival on 24 July 2013 was AirAsia from Bandung at 23:50 WIB. The airport was closed right after the last landing. The last activities in the airport were the ferry flights after official closing ceremony at 00:00 WIB and the cease of transportation at 00:30 WIB. The first ferry flight, a Garuda Indonesia aircraft, received a water salute before taking off from Polonia Airport and after landing at Kualanamu Airport. It carried the Minister of State-owned Enterprise Dahlan Iskan along with the Deputy Minister of Transportation and other officials. After the ferry flights were completed, all of the Polonia Airport's activity officially shifted to Kualanamu International Airport. Polonia Airport is now used as an air force base. Facilities The airport is located on 144 hectares land area. There is a single asphalt runway (05/23) which is 3000 m long and 45 m wide, but has only 2,900 m of usable length. There is no run-off space beyond the runway thresholds, and the airfield is surrounded by residential areas. It is often said that its location in a residential district, the wealthy Polonia area, is due to a superstition that the loud noises from aircraft drive away malevolent spirits. Until recently, the airport consisted of an international and domestic terminal. A fire in