The city has two airports.

The oldest and closest to the city, Băneasa Airport (tel.: 9371), serves low cost companies (serving flights to Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the UK, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria - of which BlueAir has its hub on BBU), charters going to Turkey and Greece. The airport faces more and more pressure because of the extensive residential area to the South of it (because of its proximity to the city proper), but there will be no change until the government decides building (or allowing someone to build) a second airport.

Built in 1971, Otopeni Airport (tel.: (021)2041000), located 10 km. further on the road to Ploiești, still serves most of the flights. Tarom is the Romanian national airline carrier. Both Băneasa and Otopeni airports are served by bus #783 (that runs every 15 minutes on weekdays and every 30 minutes on weekends, it works with 2 rides cards bought from the aluminium RATB kiosks; it goes on the following route: Otopeni – Băneasa – the Arch of Triumph – Victory Square - Romană Square – University Square – Unirea Square), while Băneasa is also served by regular city buses (that work on regular tickets bought from the same kiosks), # 131 and 301 from Romană Square. There also exists bus #780 from both airports to București Nord Railway Station. The bus stop in Otopeni Airport lies as you exit the domestic arrivals terminal to the right (from the international arrivals terminal, take the elevator or the escalators down to the ground level, then exit and turn to the right). There also exists a shuttle + train service from Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport (Otopeni) to București Nord Railway Station; it takes around 45 minutes for the transfer from the airport to Bucharest’s station. As you come out of luggage claim and customs, in the public area (still inside), look for the CFR kiosk, get your ticket (RON 6.00) and then exit, look for the coach (or van, sometimes they replace the coach with a 16 seat van), it will take you to the makeshift railway station in Otopeni (10 minutes), where a train to București Nord Station departs every hour (30 minutes). The 6 RON ticket covers both the bus and the train ride. Trains run hourly between 05.00 AM and 11.00 PM (approximately). Check out this website for up-to-date schedules for the train (kindly keep in mind the fact that the bus from the airport starts around 25 minutes before the train). Type in “Bucuresti Nord” for Bucharest main railway station, respectively “P.O. Aeroport H” (yeah, exactly like that, otherwise you get nada) for the makeshift station in Otopeni the train uses. As always in Romania, do not rely on tight train connections, allow at least 20-30 minutes for safe commuting. If you need to go farther than București Nord Station by train, you can do all your tickets at the CFR ticket office in the airport. During most days (week days, but also on Saturday and Sunday afternoons), this is the fastest and hassle free way of getting to the city (as from the railway station you can get on the subway).

N. B. May 12, 2009: Some 2 (two) months after its opening, Minister of Transport Radu Berceanu announced that the train service to Otopeni Airport will be discontinued due to a lack of efficiency; no further information (like in “when”) was provided. Allowing the market some time to get used to a new product? Yeah, sure. No preliminary research, no advertising, no connection between flight departures / arrivals, respectively the train schedule, a well hidden ticket office at the airport, the airport taxi mafia and corruption, these are the ingredients for the recipe of getting back to 2 hour sweaty bus or taxi rides to the airport during the rush hour. And for those not in the know, back to crooked taxi drivers ready to rip one off. Thank you, Minister (well, he eventually did not succeed to cut it off and the train is still running, even though the connecting coach has been meanwhile replaced with an awkwardly meagre van).

In front of the international arrivals terminal (on Otopeni OTP) there are nowadays taxis belonging to TaxiFly which are allowed to wait there. They charge almost twice more than a regular taxi (around 3 RON / km. as compared to the others’ RON 1.39-1.80 / km.), but regular taxis are only allowed to drop clients at the departures terminal and then they have to flee. Therefore, go to the departures terminal, walk out and look for reputable companies such as CrisTaxi, Cobălcescu, Meridian, Getax, Leone, Rodell, 2000. A ride from Otopeni to the centre should never go over the equivalent of RON 40 (usually it is RON 25-30). Never, under any circumstance, do not take any offer anyone would come to you with in or in front of the terminal. If in doubt, restrict your options to bus # 783 / # 780 and TaxiFly, even though I recommend against supporting the TaxiFly monopoly.