Romania’s Cluj-Napoca international airport has recorded 2 million passengers since the beginning of this year.

By comparison, the airport saw a total number of 1.88 million passengers in 2016. It could reach 2.8-3 million passengers by the end of this year, according to airport representatives.

The traffic growth in the first eight months of this year was 55% and August was the busiest month in the airport’s history, with over 290,000 passengers flying to and from Cluj-Napoca.

“The next target is 7 million passengers, a level estimated for 2030,” the airport’s general director David Ciceo said.

In 1996, the airport only had 32,000 passengers, with only one airline providing flights. There are currently ten airlines offering 45 flights to 20 countries from Cluj-Napoca.

Both Wizz Air and Blue Air have flights from Cluj-Napoca to Romania’s capital Bucharest, which have become very popular. It takes more than six hours to make the 450-kilometer car ride between the two cities while the train makes almost ten hours. This makes the low cost 50-minute flights attractive even with the waiting time at the airport, and the costs are also lower.

Other popular destinations from Cluj airport are London, München, Milan, Paris, and Barcelona.

editor@romania-insider.com