Nuremberg Airport , , is the international airport of the Franconian metropolitan area of Nuremberg and the second-busiest airport in Bavaria after Munich Airport. The year 2018, with 4.5 million, was the year with the highest passenger volume ever at this airport. It is Germany's 9th busiest airport in 2022. It is located approximately 5 km north of Nuremberg's city centre and offers flights within Germany as well as to European metropolitan and leisure destinations, especially along the Mediterranean Sea, on the Canary Islands and in Egypt. History Before the current airport Prior to World War II, the Nuremberg area was served by a number of airfields in quick succession, all of which became inadequate in the face of the rapid development of aviation or fell victim to the same wars that had played a part in their construction. The first airfield in the area was built in 1915 by the Bavarian Army in the neighboring town of Fürth as a military air base. This Old Atzenhof Airport (Fürth Airfield) remained in civilian use throughout the Weimar Republic until the new Nazi government opened the new Marienberg Airport in Nuremberg. Largely destroyed in the war, the site of the former Marienberg airport today is a public park. The former Atzenhof airfield was taken over by the US Army after the war and is today used as a golf course with some of the erstwhile airport buildings still extant. Being thus left without a "proper" usable civilian airport - from 1950 to the completion of the new permanent airport passenger flights serving the area had to land at a private airfield of a Fürth based company near the current endpoint of the U1 subway line, Fürth Hardhöhe station (A small plaque in the access tunnel to the subway station reminds of that history) - the need to build an airport equipped for the demands of the rapidly growing aviation sector became pressing and the young Federal Republic of Germany engaged in the first airport building project of its existence. Early years Nuremberg Airport was the first airport constructed in Germany after World War II. It was inaugurated on 6 April 1955. In 1960, the number of passengers at Nuremberg Airport reached 100,000 for the first time. In 1961 the runway was extended from 1,900 to , and in 1968 the runway was extended to its present length of , allowing jumbo