However, the Otopeni Airport, which served about 9.3 million passengers last year, is behind Warsaw’s Chopin and the airport in Budapest, whose traffic was higher.
Bucharest is slowly closing the gap to the other capital cities in the region, as the arrival of low-cost companies that pushed prices down and the rise in the number of tourists are driving the number of passengers using the airport up.
“It is hard for Romania to compete with countries like Italy, Spain and Greece by tourism,” Michael O’Leary, chief executive officer of low-cost airline Ryanair said not long ago.
Romania can take advantage of the problems Egypt and Turkey are facing and attract tourists because it is a much safer country and the airport in Bucharest has the potential for a traffic increase to 40 million people, he added.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)