Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport

Built in 1955 as a military airbase, Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport opened for civil operations in May 1960. It replaced the old Palas Airport (founded in 1932).

A passenger terminal with a capacity of 200 passengers per hour was inaugurated in 1962. In 1967 the terminal expanded to a processing capacity of 300 pax/hour. In 1974 a major expansion increased the processing capacity to 1,000 pax/hour.

Use of the airport peaked at 778,766 passengers in 1979, when foreign tourism to the Romanian Riviera was at a high. Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport handled 127,635 passengers in 2017. That represented a 34.9% increase over the previous year.

In 2023, the airport registered a total traffic of 115,107 passengers, an increase by 44% compared to 2022 when 80,007 passengers were registered. The same year, work started on modernizing the airport and improving its infrastructure as part of a series of investments. The project includes work on the control tower, the passenger terminal as well as the development of other facilities.

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Constanța Airport:

Accidents and incidents

On 7 December 1970, a BAC One-Eleven operated by TAROM crashed on approach to Mihail Kogălniceanu, 5 km (3.1 mi) away from the runway, killing 19 of the 27 occupants. The accident occurred due to poor weather. The aircraft was flying from Tel Aviv and had been diverted from Bucharest.

On 12 June 2017, a MiG-21 LanceR of the Romanian Air Force crashed on approach, 8 km away from Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport. The pilot, though seriously injured, survived and the aircraft was written off.