The Bucharest subway company has received a construction permit to advance a long-awaited subway route from the capital, Bucharest, to the Henri Coanda International airport.
Metrorex said it had received the permit for a 7.6 kilometer 1 Mai – Tokyo segment of the new line M6 which will connect the remaining underground network to Henri Coandă International Airport.
The 14-kilometer M6 line will run through northern Bucharest out to the airport in Otopeni.
Financing comes from the state budget and a loan from the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency).
The line will cost about 1.66 billion lei (about 335 million euros ) and the line will take almost four years (44 months) to complete. The line is expected to be ready in 2028.
The line has been plagued by delays, a shortage of funds and so-called ‘feasibility problems’ over the years.
There is currently an overground train from Bucharest’s Gara de Nord to the airport, opened was opened in 2020.
In 2018, Romania secured a non-reimbursable loan from the EU to extend the M6 line from the 1 May Boulevard to the Baneasa Mall, but it didn’t include the segment from the mall to the airport.’
The new subway line will primarily be used by people in the capital of more than two million but also people living south of Bucharest and in northern Bulgaria who also fly from Bucharest airport.
The M6 Line will have a total of 16 stations: 4 stations shared with the existing M4 Line and 12 planned new stations: Pajura, Expoziției, Piața Montreal, Gara Băneasa, Aeroport Băneasa, Tokyo, Washington, Paris, Bruxelles, Otopeni, Ion I.C. Brătianu, and Henri Coanda Airport.
Romania’s government says long overdue subway line from capital to airport WILL go ahead
