Cluj Airport was founded on April 1, 1932. The following year, the Romanian government gave its title of international airport to Cluj Airport with the first international flight between Prague and Cluj. During the Second World War, the airport took on a military vocation. It was the most important of its kind in Transylvania. With the war, Transylvania will be ceded to Hungary, which will use the airport for its military aviation, as well as that of the German Luftwaffe. After the Romanian reconquest, the airport was completely destroyed in 1944.

Airport activities resume soon after with flights between Cluj and other Romanian cities.

In 1970, modernization work was undertaken for the airport. In 2001, it will be brought back to the new standards. In 2007, following the rapid growth of passenger and cargo traffic, a new terminal was built. It will be inaugurated the following year.

Since then, the airport welcomes more and more passengers and becomes a hub for Transylvania. This is why Dacii Transilvaniei made its second hub there.

To access information about the airport, click here.

History

Celts from the west, Scordices and Galatians settled in the third century BC in the midst of the Dacians, Thracian people. The name Napoca is either Celtic or Dacian. The city prospered thanks to the commercial relations with the Greek colonies of the Black Sea. Later, the Romans made it a colony.

In 271 AD, the Romans retreated and other kingdoms followed one another. Local tribes mingle with Latinized thracian populations. The city of Napoca disappears, and the culture of Dridu which succeeds to him, testifies of a life especially rural. After a period of belonging to the first Bulgarian empire, it was the tribes of the Magyars who, from 895, settled in the country

The first medieval mention of Cluj dates from 1167 under the name of Castrum Clus, small fortified locality. The name of the city may come from either the Latin clausa - clusa, also the origin of the words "closed" and "cluse", either of the Slavic kluč or the Germanic Klause - Kluse, in the local geographical context, a "pass" in the mountains. In 1241 the city was ravaged by the Mongols and most of the first inhabitants were killed or enslaved. German colonists began settling there around 1270. In the early 14th century the city (whose name changed to Claudiopolis or Klausenburg in German, in Hungarian Kolozsvár, in Romanian Cluș or Cluj) acquired the status of "royal city" and received some privileges, including the power to choose his parish priest and the right to erect a church; this is the time when the construction of St. Michael's Church began.

In 1405, Sigismund I of the Holy Roman Empire granted the city the status of "free royal city", which led to a strong urban development: the city had the right to build ramparts, its traders were exempted from certain customs duties and his artisans were able to send their products from Istanbul to Prague and from Venice to Kiev. The city also developed thanks to the privileges granted by Matthias Corvin who was born there.

After the conquest of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire in 1526, Transylvania became an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the Hungarian population of the city adopted Unitarianism, which resulted in the mixing and assimilation of the German population. Kolozsvár (Cluj) was then the main cultural and economic center as well as one of the three major religious centers of Transylvania.

In 1699, Transylvania became part of the Austrian Empire. In 1704, the ramparts begin to be destroyed. In 1715, the Imperial Army started the construction of a Vauban style fortress on Citadel Hill. From 1790 to 1848 and from 1861 to 1867 Kolozsvár was the capital of Transylvania, which led to the modernization of the city and the increase of the number of its Romanian inhabitants.

In 1918, when Transylvania voted to join Romania, the city of Cluj massively opened to the Romanian population of neighboring villages.

Following the Second Vienna Arbitration, Cluj became Hungarian again between August 1940 and August 1944, while resuming his Magyar name, Kolozsvár. In close collaboration with the Nazis, the Hungarian authorities then led by the regent Miklós Horthy, enclose 18,000 Jews from the city and surrounding areas in the Kolozsvár ghetto. The members of this community represented 15% of the total population before the war.

Taken by the Soviets and the Romanians in September 1944, Cluj was then occupied by the Soviets from 1945 to 1952, and officially returned to Romania became communist to the peace treaty of Paris of 1947. In 1974, the ancient denomination of Napoca is added in the name of Cluj. However, the majority of Romanians continue to call the city by its traditional name of Cluj.

In 2007, Cluj was elected the European city of culture.