January 17, 2006
A new terminal was opened at the international airport serving Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. This terminal has the distinction of being the most recently built of the four passenger terminals at that airport, which is located in northwestern Prague’s district of Ruzynĕ.
Prague Ruzynĕ International Airport began operations on April 5, 1937. At that time, the present-day Czech Republic was part of a country consisting primarily of both ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. This country, commonly known as Czechoslovakia, was taken over in its entirety by Germany within the next couple of years. Following Germany’s defeat during World War II, Czechoslovakia was reestablished as a parliamentary democracy. In 1948, however, this country became an Eastern Bloc communist state. The non-violent Velvet Revolution ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia in 1989. In 1993, this country was split into the independent states of Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
In 2012, Prague Ruzynĕ International Airport was renamed in memory of one of the more renowned leaders of the Velvet Revolution. Along with helping to topple the Communist system in Czechoslovakia, statesman and writer Václav Havel (1936-2011) served as that country’s last president from 1989 to 1992 and as the first president of the Czech Republic between 1993 and 2003.
Václav Havel Airport Prague holds the record as the busiest airports in the Czech Republic. This airport earned another claim to fame during the same year in which its newest terminal was opened. That was when this airport appeared on the silver screen, standing in for Miami International Airport in the James Bond movie Casino Royale.
Photo Credit: Felix Riehle (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
Additional information on airports in the Czech Republic is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_Czech_Republic
Transportation History 
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