Cluj Napoca Airport Guide: Transylvania’s Low Cost Hub
Cluj Napoca Airport has grown into a busy low cost base serving Transylvania and the Romanian diaspora. See its runway, airlines, routes and plans.
By The Aviation Hub
5 min read
Updated October 20, 2026 
Transylvania’s largest city has turned its airport into a genuine success story over two decades. Cluj Napoca Airport, officially Avram Iancu Cluj International, handled almost 3.6 million passengers in 2025. Low cost flights to the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany and Italy drive the traffic, carrying Romanian workers, students and a growing number of tourists. In November 2023 it became the first regional airport in Romania to welcome its three millionth passenger in a single year.
Cluj Napoca Airport at a Glance
The codes are CLJ and LRCL. The airport lies about 5 miles (8 km) east of the city centre in the Someseni district, at an elevation of 1,039 ft (317 m). It has one runway and a single terminal complex built in stages since 2008.
Passenger numbers reached around 3.58 million in 2025, up nearly 10 per cent, with about 30,000 aircraft movements. Wizz Air bases aircraft at Cluj Napoca Airport and runs by far the largest network. Ryanair, Lufthansa, LOT, Swiss, Turkish Airlines and TAROM also fly here. Cluj County Council owns the airport. Schedules and parking details are on the airport’s official website.
How Cluj Got Its Airport
The site at Someseni began as a military airfield, with land granted for that purpose in 1917. The first civil passenger flight landed on 2 August 1928. The Romanian Ministry of Industry and Trade formally founded the airport on 1 April 1932, and it was declared international the following year.
The airport served Hungarian and German forces as a military base during the Second World War and was heavily damaged. For decades afterwards it was known simply as Someseni Airport. It was later named after Avram Iancu, the Transylvanian lawyer who led Romanian forces during the 1848 revolution.
Real growth came after Romania joined the European Union in 2007. A new arrivals hall opened in May 2008 and a departures hall in May 2009, at a combined cost of about 40 million euros. Traffic at Cluj Napoca Airport passed one million passengers in 2010 and has risen almost every year since.
Runways at Cluj Napoca Airport
Runway 07/25 is 2,040 m (6,693 ft) long and 45 m (148 ft) wide, with a concrete surface. It opened on 26 October 2013, after construction began in September 2011, and the old runway 08/26 was converted into a taxiway.
The runway runs roughly east to west along the valley of the Somes river, with hills rising on both sides. Fog and winter snow are the main weather problems, and in January 2016 a Blue Air Boeing 737-400 slid off the runway after landing long in wet snow. None of the 116 people on board was hurt.
The runway is comfortable for the Airbus A320neo and A321neo jets that dominate the field. The original plan envisaged a longer runway of up to 3,500 m (11,483 ft), which would open the door to heavier long range aircraft.
Terminals and Airlines
The terminal complex links the 2008 arrivals building and the 2009 departures building through a connector opened in late 2009. A 7,200 sq m extension to departures opened on 31 May 2024 and lifted the number of gates from nine to twelve.
Wizz Air dominates, with dozens of routes, many of them seasonal, operated by its Airbus A320 family fleet. Ryanair competes on several of the same markets. Lufthansa flies to Munich, LOT to Warsaw, Swiss to Zurich, and Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, giving Cluj Napoca Airport solid links to the global hub network.
TAROM flies only to Bucharest Otopeni. Pegasus, Corendon, HiSky, Animawings, SkyUp and Sky Express add more leisure and regional options.
Routes and Destinations
Bucharest was historically the busiest single route from Cluj Napoca Airport, with almost half a million passengers in 2018. London Luton came next at over 300,000, followed by Munich, Milan Bergamo and Paris Beauvais.
By country, the United Kingdom leads, closely followed by Spain, Germany and Italy. These are the markets where large Romanian communities live and work, and many flights are full at Christmas, Easter and in August when families travel home. Leisure flights to Greece and Turkey fill the summer schedule.
Cargo is modest at around 6,600 tonnes a year in 2025. Cluj’s growing technology sector also generates steady business traffic to Munich, Zurich and Warsaw.
Getting to and from Cluj Napoca Airport
Cluj Napoca Airport sits on the E576 road east of the city, and the drive to the centre takes around 20 minutes. Taxis and rideshare wait outside arrivals, and fares to the city are modest by Western European standards.
Public transport is cheap and frequent. Trolleybus 8 runs to Mihai Viteazul Square in the centre, and trolleybus 5 serves the main railway station. The A1E express bus runs direct to Mihai Viteazul Square without stops. A city transport ticket is the cheapest option by a long way. Suburban buses link nearby towns.
Parking is available beside the terminal. Rental car desks are in arrivals, which suits travellers heading into the Apuseni Mountains or across Transylvania.
Spotting and Photography
Cluj Napoca Airport is easy to read. The single runway carries every movement, and the Wizz Air bank in the early morning and evening brings a rush of A321neo departures and arrivals. Lufthansa, Swiss and Turkish jets add variety through the day.
The terminal windows overlook the apron. Outside, the roads and fields along the Somes valley offer views of aircraft on approach, with the hills behind them. Summer evenings give warm light, while winter mornings can bring fog.
Stay on public land, keep clear of the perimeter fence and avoid stopping on the main road. Romanian police take airport security seriously and may question long lenses near fences.
What Comes Next
A second terminal of around 40,000 sq m is planned, which would roughly double the floor space at Cluj Napoca Airport. ROMATSA, the Romanian air navigation service, chose a design in 2014 for a new 42 m control tower shaped like a tulnic, the long wooden horn of Romanian shepherds.
Traffic in the first five months of 2026 was already above 1.3 million passengers. The verdict is continued strong growth, provided terminal space keeps up with Wizz Air’s ambitions. See how it compares with other Romanian airports on the Airports of the World map.
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