A Fifth Edition, and a Changed Industry.
Aviation-Event 2026 CLJ marked the fifth consecutive edition of the conference in Romania, organized by Aviation-Event in partnership with "Avram Iancu" Cluj International Airport and the Cluj County Council. Around 200 decision-makers and more than 30 speakers gathered in Cluj-Napoca. Airline executives, airport operators, regulators, infrastructure providers, and aviation media. The day was opened by Maria Forna, Prefect of Cluj County, and Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, with the welcome session moderated by José Ramón Bauzá, former MEP and Honorary Member of the Aviation-Event Supervisory Board.
David Ciceo, Director General of Cluj International Airport, delivered the opening keynote. "Aviation-Event CLJ has become a benchmark for the civil aviation ecosystem, both regionally and internationally," Ciceo said, framing the day around international cooperation and sustainable development. Matthew Cornelius, Executive Vice President of ACI North America, then offered the transatlantic perspective, followed by a leadership keynote from Ian Malin, Chief Commercial Officer of Wizz Air, moderated by Rüdiger Kiani-Kress of WirtschaftsWoche.
Marcel Riwalsky, CEO of Aviation-Event, opened the day alongside Ciceo, framing the fifth edition as a milestone in the partnership between the organization and Cluj International Airport. Peter Baumgartner, Chairman of the Aviation-Event Supervisory Board and former CEO of Etihad Airways, delivered the wrap-up.
Three thematic panels structured the rest of the day. Investment and Governance brought together airport leaders from Salzburg (Bettina Ganghofer), Tallinn (Riivo Tuvike), and Dakar (Askin Demir), alongside Jakub Małecki of LOT Polish Airlines and Mihai Pătrașcu of Satu Mare Airport.
The Innovation panel gathered Thomas Dworschak (CEO Košice Airport and Director of IT Digitalization at Vienna Airport), Gert Taeymans (EVP Europe, ADB SAFEGATE), Iustinian Șovrea (GlobalLogic Romania), Sofia Mari (Athens International Airport), Professor Sorin Eugen Zaharia of the UNESCO Chair at Politehnica Bucharest, and Marius Popescu of the Carpathia airline association.
The Aviation National Focus panel closed the day with Bogdan Costaș (TAROM), Cristian Paris (Menzies Aviation), Marius Pandel (AnimaWings), Romeo Vatră (Iași International Airport), and Nicolae Stoica (Romanian Civil Aeronautical Authority (AACR)).
The venue itself carried part of the argument. Cluj “Avram Iancu” International Airport has grown from 36,000 passengers a year in 1996 to more than 3.58 million in 2025. It is now Romania’s second-busiest airport after Bucharest, and around 65,000 passengers already travel indirectly between Cluj and the United States every year. Ciceo confirmed that a direct US route is being actively worked on, though not before 2030 at the earliest, the timeline on which the runway extension can be delivered. The conference, in other words, was being hosted by an airport whose own trajectory is one of the clearest case studies of the theme on the agenda.
