Aviation in Romania
| Transport in Romania |
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Romania has a rich tradition in the aviation field. At the beginning of the 20th century, flight pioneers like Aurel Vlaicu, Traian Vuia and George Valentin Bibescu brought important contributions to early aviation history, building revolutionary aeroplanes and changing the age's mentalities.
In the present, the Romanian Civil Aeronautic Authority is the one overseeing the activities.
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[edit] History
The Romanian scientist Henri Coandă exhibited his first aircraft in 1910, worked in the UK to design aircraft for World War I, and continued to make inventions in a variety of fields. He discovered the Coanda effect of fluidics.
Hermann Oberth was also a native Romanian, born in Sibiu.
Along the 20th century Romania built military aircraft (the IAR-39 and IAR-80 before and during World War II and the IAR-93 and IAR-99 Şoim since the 70s), helicopters (IAR 316, IAR 330 - under Aérospatiale licence) as well as passenger aircraft (ROMBAC 1-11 built under British Aircraft Corporation licence).
The industrial facilities for aircraft building and maintenance are located in Bacǎu (Aerostar), Braşov (Industria Aeronautică Română), Craiova (Avioane Craiova) and Bucharest (Romaero, Turbomecanica).
Dumitru Prunariu is the only Romanian astronaut who participated in a space mission (Soyuz 40 - May 14, 1981).
[edit] Romanian air transport operators
- TAROM - the state-owned Romanian operator, with the hub on Henri Coandă International Airport
- Romavia
- Carpatair - the hub airport: Timişoara "Traian Vuia"
- Blue Air - hub airport: Bucharest "Aurel Vlaicu", Bacau
- Jetran Air
- Acvila Air
- Ion Ţiriac Air
Former Romanian carriers:
- Jaro International - hub at "Aurel Vlaicu" International Airport, Bucharest
- Angel Airlines - hub airport : Bucharest "Aurel Vlaicu"
- Dac Air
- LAR Romanian Airlines
[edit] Airports in Romania
Romania has a well-developed airport infrastructure compared to other countries in Eastern Europe, but still underdeveloped compared to Western countries standards. There are 16 commercial airports in service today, most of them opened for international traffic. Five of the airports (OTP, BBU, TSR, CND, SBZ) have runways of over 3,000 m in length and are capable of handling wide-body aircraft. Three of the airports (BCM, CRA, SUJ) have runways of 2,500 m in length, while the rest of them have runways of 1,800 to 2,400 m.
In 2011, the air traffic reached 10.7 million passengers, 5.1% more than the previous year when there were 10.2 million people flying by plane.[1][2]
| Rank | Airport | City | Code (IATA/ICAO) |
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | Change |
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| 1. | Henri Coandă International Airport | Bucharest | OTP/LROP | 4,483,661 | 4,917,952 | 5,049,443 |  2.7% |
| 2. | Aurel Vlaicu International Airport | Bucharest | BBU/LROB | 2,005,694 | 2,118,150 | 2,397,990 | 13.2% |
| 3. | Traian Vuia International Airport | Timişoara | TSR/LRTR | 956,897 | 1,139,133 | 1,202,925 | 5.6% |
| 4. | Cluj-Napoca International Airport | Cluj-Napoca | CLJ/LRCL | 834,400 | 1,028,907 | 1,004,927 |  2.3% |
| 5. | George Enescu International Airport | Bacău | BCM/LRBC | 195,952 | 240,767 | 22.8% (2010) |
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| 6. | Transilvania Târgu Mureş Airport | Târgu Mureş | TGM/LRTM | 85,000 | 74,856 | 257,303 | 243% |
| 7. | Iaşi International Airport | Iaşi | IAS/LRIA | 148,538 | 164,000 | 184,225 | 12.3% |
| 8. | Sibiu International Airport | Sibiu | SBZ/LRSB | 154,160 | 198,751 | 176,908 | 11% |
| 9. | Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport | Constanţa | CND/LRCK | 92,983 | 78,457 | 15,6% (2010) |
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| 10. | Oradea International Airport | Oradea | OMR/LROD | 80,000 | |||
| 11. | Ştefan cel Mare Suceava Airport | Suceava | SCV/LRSV | 32,624 | 34,900 | 7% (2010) |
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| 12. | Craiova International Airport | Craiova | CRA/LRCV | 23,000 | |||
| 13. | Baia Mare International Airport | Baia Mare | BAY/LRBM | 24,909 | |||
| 14. | Satu Mare International Airport | Satu Mare | SUJ/LRSM | 11,101 | |||
| 15. | Arad International Airport | Arad | ARW/LRAR | 100,000 | 13,257 | 1,124 | 91.5% |
| 16. | "Delta Dunarii" Tulcea Airport | Tulcea | TCE/LRTC | 854 |
[edit] Future development
Following the ascending curve of the economy growth, the air transportation in Romania experiences a favorable trend. Carpatair is the Romanian airline with the most spectacular growth; the national carrier TAROM is recovering from a difficult period at the beginning of 2000s, 2004 being the first profitable year in the last 10 years, but with a price: the cancellation of the long-haul flights to New York, Chicago, Montreal and Beijing. In 2006 the company started a fleet update program with the acquisition of 4 new Airbus A318 airplanes. The first Romanian low-cost airline, Blue Air, is going through a development phase, while other low cost airlines are ready to start their operations.
There are many investment projects also in airport infrastructure: the upgrading of the existing airports (major rehabilitation programs for OTP, TSR, CLJ, CND, the airports with the most significant traffic growth) and the construction of three new airports in Braşov, Galaţi - Brăila (a 600,000 inhabitants urban area without airport access) and Deva - Alba Iulia (Southern Transylvania).
Currently (dec. 2006) the most advanced project is the construction of the new Braşov Airport [1], the construction site opening is planned for March 2007. The project consists of a 1 mil. passengers/year terminal and a runway of 2,800 m long.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ European airport passengers up 7% in 2011 to over 1.6 billion at anna.aero
- ^ Romania: Air traffic to grow by 5 percent in 2011, up to 10.7 million passengers at aviationnews.us
[edit] External links
- Romanian Airports Association
- Civil Aeronautical Authority
- ROMATSA - Romanian Traffic Services Administration
- Romanian Air Force
- Romanian Space Agency
- ARCA shuttle program
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