Arriving at Bucharest Otopeni (Henri Coanda) Airport

Otopeni (officially Henri Coanda) Bucharest's main airport, is 17km north of the city on the DN1. Opened in 1970 but recently extended, it is a spacious, efficient airport. 

After getting off the plane and easing your way through passport control, you’ll find yourself in the baggage reclaim area. Ignore all of the services on offer here. You should especially ignore the currency exchange desks: they do not offer decent rates.

Instead, grab your luggage, which usually arrives promptly (if it fails to arrive head for the small office on the left hand of side of the exit, where staff will help you find out where it might have gone), and then it’s off through customs to the arrivals area.

Here there are loads of ATMs, a press shop and a small cafe. To the right is a passage leading to the departures terminal: the passage is lined with car hire desks and a few shops, including a chemist.

To order a taxi, look out for the girls at the two Taxi desks as you exit, where a free - yes, free - telephone can be used to call the taxi company of your choice (a list of the main companies and their tarifs is displayed next to the counter). The fact that the phone is free is a real bonus for foreign visitors who do not want to make an expensive call with their mobiles. If you do not speak Romanian the girl will call the taxi for you.

Once the taxi company has told you how long the taxi will take to arrive, and what ID number the taxi has, you fill out the name of the taxi company and the number of the taxi and give it to the girl. She taps it into a computer, gives you the nod and you go outside to wait for your normal-priced taxi. There are now no other taxis waiting outside. All of the rip-off merchants have gone.

Alongside the two taxi help desks, there are also now free multi-language touch screens designed to make the process of ordering a taxi even easier. They are fully automated and very easy to use, and you can choose from the full range of Bucharest taxi companies: all have their tariffs displayed clearly. From the beginning of June the screens will in fact be the only way to get a taxi at Otopeni: the help desks are being phased out.

You can also get to town by taking bus 783, which stops underneath the arrivals hall, in front of internal arrivals and leaves for the city centre (stopping at Piata Victoriei, Piata Romana and Piata Universitatii) every 30 minutes during the day, and then every 40 minutes through the night.

The full timetable of the 783 bus is online at ratb.ro.

You need to purchase an Activ Card before boarding (get it from the little booth which you’ll find on your right hand side as you exit). A return journey into the city and back costs 7 lei (no singles are available, but there is no time limit on using the return). You also need to pay 3.70 lei for the card, but it can be recharged as often as you like at any ticket kiosk in Bucharest, with as much credit as you like, and used on all Bucharest buses, trams and the metro. These cards cannot be bought on board. 

There is also now a train which connects the airport to the main railway station, Gara de Nord. The train departs at irregular and infrequent intervals, however, and to get to the airport's station you need to take a bus. We do not recommend it. Timetables and tickets are available from a counter in the Arrivals hall. Look out for the Bilete CFR sign.