Departure
96%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Iaşi International Airport (LRIA) lies some 8 km east of Iaşi city centre in the historic region of Moldavia, close to Romania's border with the Republic of Moldova. One of the country's oldest airports, tracing its commercial origins to 1926, it now hosts an ILS-equipped main runway and a busy mix of scheduled and charter traffic, making it a useful and historically rich destination for a VFR or IFR sim flight in eastern Romania.
Iaşi International Airport, ICAO code LRIA, serves the city of Iaşi in north-eastern Romania and is operated by the Iaşi County Council. It is one of the oldest accredited airports in the country and the principal airfield of the historical region of Moldavia. For a sim pilot it offers an interesting mix of a long ILS-served asphalt runway alongside an older concrete strip, set against a border-region backdrop close to the Republic of Moldova, and a long and continuous operational history stretching back to 1926.
The airport sits about 8 km (5 mi) east of Iaşi city centre, in the far north-east of Romania near the border with the Republic of Moldova. Its proximity to that border became operationally significant in 2022, when the closure of Moldovan airspace led several airlines to reroute flights from Chişinău to Iaşi instead.
Iaşi has two physical runways. The main runway, 14/32, is 7,865 ft long, has a hard surface, is lit, and is equipped with an ILS on runway 14. A second, shorter runway, 15/33, is 5,902 ft long, has a hard surface and is also lit. Field elevation is 371 ft.
Approach, departure and tower services are provided on 119.2 MHz. An area control frequency of 128.61 MHz is also listed. A ground-controlled approach (GCA) facility operates on 118.8 MHz, and a precision approach tower/approach/departure frequency of 119.55 MHz is available. The airport is equipped with an ILS, offering a Category I precision approach to runway 14.
Iaşi's role as a commercial air link began on 24 June 1926, when scheduled flights started on the Bucharest–Galaţi–Iaşi–Chişinău route, operated by the Compagnie Franco-Roumaine de Navigation Aérienne, later renamed LARES and eventually TAROM. In 1966 a north–south concrete runway, 15/33, measuring 1,800 m (5,906 ft), was built along with a modern lighting system, and a passenger terminal followed three years later. The terminal was upgraded in 2001 to separate domestic and international flows, and a second terminal, T2, opened in June 2012 for domestic traffic. A major multi-stage upgrade programme began in 2013: the first 1,800 m of a new runway, 14/32, opened on 20 August 2014, with the full 2,400 m (7,874 ft) length operational from 16 October 2014, after which the old 15/33 runway was converted into a taxiway. A third terminal, T3, opened on 17 October 2015. The airport passed one million passengers in November 2017. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the closure of Moldovan airspace in February 2022, Iaşi saw a surge in traffic as airlines rerouted services from Chişinău. A fourth terminal, T4, opened on 29 March 2024 as the main passenger facility. Long-term plans include extending the main runway by a further 600 m to a total of 3,000 m (9,843 ft).
Iaşi today handles scheduled and charter services from carriers including Wizz Air, for which it is a focus city, along with Ryanair, TAROM, Austrian Airlines, flydubai, AJet, HiSky, Animawings, Sky Express and SkyUp. Passenger operations are concentrated in the modern T4 terminal, used for domestic and Schengen flights, and T3, used for non-Schengen services, while the original T1 terminal has been repurposed for administrative and storage use. Aerostar operates an aircraft maintenance centre on the airport grounds, and Heli Avia Service has developed a helicopter maintenance hangar. The field's single operational asphalt runway, 14/32, is fitted with approach lighting systems at both ends.