Did you know Prague’s 1937 Ruzyně terminal still serves state flights as Terminal 4?

Prague’s main airport still uses the building it opened with in 1937. According to the history page of Václav Havel Airport Prague, the airport at Ruzyně was completed on 1 March 1937 and operations began on 5 March 1937 at 9.00, when the first aircraft landed: a Douglas DC-2 on a domestic service from Piešťany. The first international flight, linking Vienna, Prague and Berlin, arrived about an hour later.

The original building was admired in its day. The airport says international aviation experts called Ruzyně one of the finest airports in Europe and that its terminal became a model for other airports across the continent. Restored in 1986 with full respect for its Functionalist architecture, the building is now Terminal 4 and mainly serves state and official flights.

The airport took its current name on 5 October 2012, when Prague-Ruzyně was renamed Václav Havel Airport Prague. Traffic has since grown far beyond the 1930s: the airport handled more than 10 million passengers for the first time in 2005, passed 17 million in 2019 and reached 17,750,528 passengers in 2025, a new all-time record.

Because the historic terminal mainly serves state and official flights, passengers on scheduled services should check which terminal their flight uses on the airport’s website or with their airline before travelling.