The Telora International Airport, officially Eiro'hort Entuneitional Telora, is the largest international airport within the Constitutional Monarchy of Aquitayne. It is the principle hub for air traffic travelling along the central-eastern regions of Astyria, and is a main focal point for international connections and domestic routes. The airport was opened in late 2012, and has so far seen only one year of international service, though since 2009 it has served as a domestic hub to regional airports all across Aquitayne, and in those years served about 36 million passengers annually.
The airport is located approximately 20 miles outside downtown Telora, and can be accessed by exits 95A, off of the 1-C Interchange, and 87B, off of the 10-R Expressway, respectively. The airport is connected transversely to the city, the Telora Port and Waterways, as well as accessible routes to the countryside and local businesses. The Telora Metropolitan Rail System, completed in mid-2012, runs through the underside of the Concourse A Terminal, and takes departing flyers to Telora Station, where they may connect with any other rail stations and departures they may need to access. Likewise, the Metropolitan Bus Association regularly sends drivers to the terminals to pick up and drop off passengers.
The current site of the airport was purchased in 1997 by private investors with several hundred hectares of land being procured from local farmers and landowners. The government requisitioned the land in a wartime reclamation act in 2001, before any real production of an airport had taken shape. The Air Force turned the land into a formidable air base to repel a Freezian invasion and later to combat Comrade Commisar. However, the land shuffled hands once more when the previous owners sued for the rights to the land back, arguing that they had not been properly informed nor compensated for the reclamation.
With an air strip already constructed, the entrepreneurs quickly contracted the architectural company Sky High Architecture to begin construction on the Concourse A terminal in mid-2003. The first flight to land at the airport was Delta-978 from Pyrgos, delivering supplies necessary for construction to begin on April 17th, 2003. It later departed the next morning.
Problems began to occur in early 2005, when some of the investors backed out of the project over looming economic disparities and the seemingly fragile market for air travel in Aquitayne. There had been multiple large airports open in other cities across the nation which had failed miserably due to lack of traffic; the most notable would be Helm Metropolitan Airport, which has since closing been purchased by private investors and turned into a paintball and airsoft arena. The lack of funding would lead to problems in production and would severely cut the construction time of the terminal.
The National Treasury would step in after two years of slow growth, to fund the rising airport terminal and finally get air traffic moving through the concourse. The first airline to take charge of this was Ceniana, who began second-day flights in and out of the airport. It wouldn't be until 2009 when the airport shut down briefly to expand their concourse to include a Terminal B, C, and D, would the true value of the project come to fruition.
