Sibiu airport operations began in 1943 on a grassy surface. The first air links were between Sibiu and Bucharest, Arad and Oradea. Other links were added as and when the city grew. The modern airport was inaugurated in 1959. It is en 1970 that the airport can operate during night, with the purchase of a lights system. The runway was built in concrete this year. The first international flights were realised in 1992 between Sibiu and Stuttgart and Munich.

Between 2006 and 2008, important investments were done to increase its scope. A new terminal was built and the runway was improved. In 2015, more than 275 000 passengers passed through this city airport. With the arrival of Dacii Transilvaniei, it is obvious that this number will increase.

To get more information on the airport, click here.

History

The first German settlers reached the area in 1143; they settled on the hill overlooking the river Cibin, the current upper town. The first written attestation of a human settlement is on a Vatican paper (a 1191 charter of Pope Celestine III), under the Latin name of praepositum Cibiniensem; a priory was founded, and the Latin name of Villa Hermanni is attested from 1223.

In 1241, the city was destroyed during the Mongol invasion, but in recovering. In the fourteenth century, Hermannstadt evolved into an important commercial center. The city was one of the most important German cities of Transylvania and even probably the most important because in addition to being a commercial, administrative and ecclesiastical center, it also possessed the most extensive fortifications throughout Transylvania.

Faced with the Turkish threat, the town erected three enclosures of walls, with dozens of towers and several large doors. The Turks never managed to capture the town, which earned him the nickname "the bastion of Christianity."

The walled city was purely German until the first decade of the eighteenth century. Only after that Transylvania had been attached to Austria-Hungary as the old laws, that he was forbidden to other nationalities to settle in the city, were abolished. In the eighteenth century, Hermannstadt could boast of being among the European cities connected to the postal system, the one located further east.

After the First World War, the city, mostly populated by Germans, was incorporated in 1920 in Romania. The city still retained its German and multicultural character. In the course of the 1930s Transylvanian Saxons lost their absolute majority in the metropolis.

Sibiu will be subject, as throughout Romania, the half-century of dictatorial Carlist fascist and communist regimes in February 1938 to December 1989. But, unlike other capitals of judete, it will not see under Nicolae Ceaușescu's demolished old center. Indeed, the local leader had nothing to prove to the communist dictator: it was his own son, Nicu Ceaușescu.

After the restoration of democracy and open borders, Sibiu found its traditional ties with central Europe and achieved development that accelerated even more easily after 2007 (integration into the European Union).