Geneva Airport
Geneva Airport , formerly and still unofficially known as Cointrin Airport, is the international airport of Geneva, the second most populous city in Switzerland. It is located northwest of the city centre. It surpassed the 15-million-passengers-a-year mark for the first time in December 2014. The airport serves as a hub for Swiss International Air Lines and easyJet Switzerland. It features a route network of flights mainly to European metropolitan and leisure destinations as well as some long-haul routes to North America, China, Africa, and the Middle East, amongst them Swiss International Air Lines' only long-haul service (to New York–JFK) outside of Zürich. The airport lies entirely within Swiss territory, however, its northern limit runs along the Swiss–French border and the airport can be accessed from both countries. The freight operations are also accessible from both countries, making Geneva a European Union freight hub although Switzerland is not a member of the EU. The airport is partially in the municipality of Meyrin and partially in the municipality of Le Grand-Saconnex. On 11 October 1919, the Grand Council of Geneva approved the establishment of an "airfield" at Meyrin. A simple airfield was established in Cointrin, near the city of Geneva, covering an area of . From 1926 to 1931, the airfield's wooden sheds were replaced by three concrete hangars. At the time, there was a small amount of air traffic, with Lufthansa flying from Berlin to Barcelona via Halle, Leipzig, Geneva and Marseille. Swissair also flew the Geneva–Lyon–Paris route through a codesharing agreement with Air Union. By 1930, there were six airlines that flew to Geneva Airport on seven different routes. 1937 saw construction of the first concrete runway; it measured . In 1938, eight airlines were flying to Geneva: Swissair, KLM, Lufthansa, Air France, Malert (Hungary), AB Aerotransport (Sweden), Alpar (Switzerland) and Imperial Airways (UK). During World War II, the Swiss authorities forbade all flights from Switzerland, but expansion of the airport led to increasing its area to and extending the main runway first to .