Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport

If you fly to Romania, you almost always land here. Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport – simply Otopeni to most people – is the country’s largest airport, home of the state airline TAROM and one of the places where you can observe the Eastern European low-cost scene particularly well. For spotters it is no sure thing like Munich or Vienna, but that is exactly its appeal: YR registrations, turboprops, military transports and an airline mix you won’t find like this in Central Europe.

From military airfield to capital airport

Otopeni’s story begins with the military. In 1940 a military airfield was built north of Bucharest, which the German Luftwaffe also used in World War II, including for night fighters. In 1944 the airfield was bombed. After the war it remained in the hands of the Romanian Air Force for a long time, while the capital’s civil traffic ran through the city-edge airport Băneasa.

From 1965 Romania expanded Otopeni into a civil commercial airport and extended the runway to 3,500 meters. On April 13, 1970, the first passenger terminal opened, designed for a good one million travelers a year. In the mid-1980s a second, parallel runway was added. Since May 2004 the airport has carried the name of the engineer Henri Coandă, a pioneer of Romanian aviation. The place name Otopeni lives on in the IATA code OTP.

Two runways in an east-west direction

The layout is quickly explained. Both runways run parallel in an east-west direction, are each 3,500 meters long and 45 meters wide. They lie about 1.1 kilometers apart – much closer than in Munich, but far enough for independent operations. Terminal, aprons and the military part are spread around the two runways.

Which runway is currently used for departures and which for landings depends on traffic, time of day and air traffic control requirements. It is best to check live in a flight tracker before you commit to a runway end. How that works is explained in the article Flight tracking with ADS-B.

Runway direction in use: 26 or 08?

As everywhere, aircraft take off and land into the wind. When it blows from the west, runway direction 26 applies: aircraft come in from the east and depart toward the west. With an easterly wind the picture reverses and 08 applies. For approach photos at the runway end, that means you have to stand at the end the aircraft are currently flying toward – and that can change within a day with a change in the weather.

How to judge wind and runway direction in advance is covered in the article Understanding the runway direction in use at airports. In Planetrack you see weather, wind and the active runways at the airport right in the app – handy when you want to decide spontaneously which end is worth it today.

TAROM: the swallow at its home airport

Otopeni is the hub and headquarters of TAROM. The state airline, a member of the SkyTeam alliance since 2010, is much smaller than it used to be but still shapes the picture at the airport. Its fleet today consists of Boeing 737 variants and ATR turboprops: besides the Boeing 737-700 and the 737-800, it flies the 737 MAX 8, with more aircraft arriving gradually. On shorter routes the ATR 72-500 and the ATR 72-600 fly.

Historically, Otopeni was a place full of types that have long since disappeared from Europe. TAROM flew here, among others, the Ilyushin Il-62, the BAC One-Eleven built under license as the Rombac, the Airbus A310 and most recently the small A318. If you leaf through old spotter books, you accordingly find many YR registrations with Bucharest as the photo location.

Low-cost, regional traffic and guests from the region

Besides TAROM, Otopeni is above all an airport of the low-cost airlines. Wizz Air and Ryanair have bases here and bring a large number of Airbus A320 family and Boeing 737 jets into the statistics. For spotters that means many registrations from different registers, including Hungarian, Maltese and other registrations of the group companies.

A second Romanian home airline is HiSky, which flies a small Airbus fleet of A320, A321neo and an A330-200. The widebody is one of the rare widebody subjects with a Romanian registration. AnimaWings was also based at Otopeni and most recently mainly used the Airbus A220-300; in September 2026 the airline filed for insolvency, and its future is open. If you have followed Romanian aviation over the last twenty years, you will also remember Blue Air, which ceased operations in 2022.

Then there are network airlines from all over Europe and the neighboring regions – from Turkish Airlines and Austrian Airlines to LOT Polish Airlines. Intercontinental scheduled traffic, by contrast, plays only a small role. You therefore rarely see widebody aircraft; all the more reason to check the arrivals board when one is announced.

Cargo: from integrators to Turkish Cargo

Otopeni is also Romania’s most important cargo airport. In 2025 cargo volume was a good 42,000 metric tons. A large part flies in the bellies of passenger aircraft, with pure freighter flights on top. The cargo airlines at the airport include DHL, UPS, Turkish Cargo, Saudia Cargo and MSC Air Cargo, among others. Turkish Cargo has the Airbus A330-200F in its fleet, among others – with some luck one of the rare widebody subjects in Bucharest.

Which freighters land when is harder to predict than passenger traffic, because many flights take place at night or irregularly. Background on the express networks is in the article Express integrators DHL, FedEx and UPS.

Military on the grounds: Air Base 90

What sets Otopeni apart from many other capital airports is the military part. Air Base 90 (transport) of the Romanian Air Force is located on the grounds. Transport aircraft such as the Lockheed C-130 Hercules and the C-27J Spartan fly from here, and according to available sources also Puma helicopters built under Romanian license.

For you this is both an opportunity and an obligation. Military transports show up in civil traffic again and again and make nice subjects. At the same time, stricter rules apply to military facilities than to the civil airport. How to tell military transports apart is explained in the article Identifying military transports.

Spotting at Otopeni: what you should know

We are not aware of a public observation deck at Otopeni, like the ones you know from Vienna or Munich. Spotters therefore move to publicly accessible paths and areas outside the fence, typically at the runway ends or along the roads around the grounds. We are not aware of any fixed, officially designated spotting places at Otopeni either – so don’t rely on old forum posts, but check on site whether a location is freely accessible and unproblematic.

The spot map in Planetrack helps you with this: there you see spots with directions, best light, ratings and photos from the community. That way you quickly see where other spotters stood most recently and how the light falls there at which time of day.

Reading YR registrations

Romanian aircraft carry the nationality prefix YR, followed by a hyphen and three letters. If you are new to the system, you’ll find the basics in the article Understanding aircraft registrations. For many spotters from Central Europe, Otopeni is above all an opportunity to finally fill a gap in YR registrations.

In Planetrack you log every sighting with photo, registration, aircraft type, airline, airport and spot. Your hangar then shows you at a glance which YR aircraft you have already seen and which are still on the wish list.

Getting there: train, bus and road

For a long time Otopeni could only be reached by road. That changed on December 13, 2020: since then a direct train connection runs between Bucharest’s main station Gara de Nord and the airport. The trip takes about 20 minutes, and the train runs at a fixed interval. The line is single-track and not electrified, which limits capacity – for spotters with light luggage it is still the most convenient solution.

Alternatively, the express bus 100 runs from downtown to the terminal. By car you reach the airport via the DN1 national road toward Ploiești. In addition, metro line M6 is under construction, which will connect the airport to the Bucharest subway network. How to weigh rail against car in general is covered in the article Getting to the spot.

Growth, Băneasa and the second terminal

Otopeni has been growing for years. In 2019 the airport stood at almost 14.7 million passengers, in 2020 traffic collapsed to under 4.5 million because of the pandemic. In 2023, at a good 14.6 million, it was almost back to its pre-crisis level, in 2024 almost 16 million came, and in 2025 about 17 million passengers. The existing terminal is thus at its limit.

For years, therefore, a second terminal has been planned on the east side of the grounds, built modularly from several buildings. The airport acquired the land in 2021; when construction will actually begin is politically contested and open. Short-term relief comes from the city: the old airport Băneasa, which after 2012 was used almost only by business aircraft for a long time, has resumed regular low-cost traffic since 2025. For spotters that means part of the Wizz Air flights no longer run through Otopeni but through Băneasa.

Otopeni compared regionally

In Southeast Europe, Otopeni is one of the larger airports. Budapest Airport, as the home of Wizz Air, is the obvious counterpart and offers spotters many more official options. Sofia Airport and Belgrade Airport combine well with a Balkan tour. If you are looking for widebody aircraft, you’re better off going to Istanbul Airport – or taking a feeder flight from Bucharest to Vienna.

For trip planning, a look at the season is also worthwhile. In winter, expect fog and cold in the Bucharest area – tips for that are in the article Plane spotting in winter.

Conclusion

Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport is not a spotter theme park but an honest, working capital airport with plenty of character. TAROM with 737s and ATRs, the Wizz Air and Ryanair bases, HiSky with its Airbus widebody, freighters and the Air Force transports add up to a mix you will hardly find in Central Europe.

Preparation and tact make the difference: sort out runway direction in use and light, read the arrivals board and be especially careful around the military part. Then you come home with a memory card full of YR registrations.