Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport

Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport is situated in south-east Romania, in the commune of Mihail Kogălniceanu, 26 km north-northwest of Constanţa. It is the main airport of Dobrogea region and it provides access to the Constanţa County, the Constanţa city port and Black Sea Romanian resorts.

History
The airport's highest traffic capacity was reached in 1979, when the Romanian Riviera reached its highest number of foreign tourists; at that time CND served 778,766 passengers. Since 1999, it has occasionally being used by the United States Air Force and has been allegedly exposed as the site of clandestine CIA interrogations.

Traffic and statistics
Mihail Kogălniceanu International handled 94,618 passengers in 2012, which represents a 28.4% increase over the previous year.

Bus
Several city bus lines link the airport to Constanta railway station. There are also few private bus lines operating to downtown Constanta or Romanian Black Sea resorts.There is no shuttle service available.

Taxi
There are always cabs available outside airport terminal.The cost of a ride to Constanta is around $30 which is considerably higher than the bus rates which can be as low as $1.50.

Car
The Airport is easily accessible by car and is located in north-western part of Constanta, which can be accessed from the DN 2A/E60 Constanta-Harsova or A4_motorway_(Romania) until Ovidiu. The airport can be reached from A2 (Autostrada Soarelui) by exiting towards Cernavoda driving on DN22C towards Medgidia then through county road DJ 222 passing through Cuza Voda all the way to town of Mihail Kogalniceanu where the airport is located.Alternatively from A2 (Autostrada Soarelui) there is another exit towards Medgidia on DJ381 and then continue on DJ222. Car rentals are also available. There is free short and long term parking right outside airport terminal.

Military uses
The airport was home of the former Romanian Air Force 57th Air Base, which was the only unit operating the Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter aircraft. The base was disbanded in April 2004 and all the 18 MiG-29s remain in open storage at the airport. It has been used by the US Military since 1999. In 2003, it became one of four Romanian military facilities that have been used by U.S. military forces as a staging area for the invasion of and ongoing counter-insurgency efforts in Iraq, operated by the 458th Air Expeditionary Group, and it is intended to become one of the main operating bases of U.S. Army Europe's Joint Task Force East, a rotating task force initially to be provided by the U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which will eventually grow to a brigade sized force.

During the first three months of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the airport was transited by 1,300 cargo and personnel transports towards Iraq, comprising 6,200 personnel and about 11,100 tons of equipment.

As of October 2009 the US has spent $48 million upgrading the base. Plans are for the base to initially host 1,700 US and Romanian military personnel. Since 2009 the US operates a Permanent Forward Operating Site (PFOS) several times larger than the temporary base housed in the former 57th Air Base; the new base has 78 buildings and uses the land of the former Romanian 34th Infantry Brigade base.

Involvement in "extraordinary renditions"
It is also alleged to be one of the black sites involved in the CIA's network of "extraordinary renditions".

According to Eurocontrol data, it has been the site of four landings and two stopovers by aircraft identified as probably belonging to the CIA's fleet of rendition planes, including at least one widely used executive jet N379P (later registered, and more commonly cited, as N44982). European (but not U.S.) media have widely distributed reports of a fax intercepted by Swiss intelligence, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, that "was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria."