Presentation
Tunis–Carthage Airport (French: Aéroport de Tunis-Carthage IATA: TUN, ICAO: DTTA) is the international airport serving Tunis in Tunisia.
The airport is named for the historic city of Carthage, located just east of the airport. It is the base of operations for four airlines: Tunisair, Nouvelair Tunisia, TunisAir Express and Tunisavia.
All ground handling is provided by Tunisair Handling, a 100% subsidiary of Tunisair, and security services are provided by the police and Customs.
The airport is served by bus lines and taxis, but not by a railway (the L'Aéroport station on the TGM suburban rail line does not actually serve it, being several miles distant).
History
The history of the airport dates back to 1920 when the first seaplane base in Tunisia was built on the Lake of Tunis for the
seaplanes of Compagnie Aéronavale.[5] The Tunis Airfield opened in 1938, serving around 5,800 passengers annually
on the Paris-Tunis route
Construction on the Tunis-Carthage Airport, which was fully funded by France, began in 1944, and in 1948 the airport become
the main hub for Tunisair. The airline started operations with Douglas DC-3s flying from Tunis-Carthage Airport to Marseille,
Ajaccio, Bastia, Algiers, Rome, Sfax, Djerba, and Tripoli.
Several other French airlines presently serve the airport, including
Aigle Azur with a stop in Tunis on the Paris-Brazzaville route, and TAI (Intercontinental Air Transport) with a stop in Tunis
on its Paris-Saigon route. The passenger traffic has grown steadily since 1951 when 56,400 passengers were carried,
33,400 of them by Air France.
In 1997 the airport terminal was expanded to 57,448 m2 (618,365 sq ft);
it consists of two floors (departure and arrival) and has a capacity of 4,400,000 passengers per year.
In 2005 the terminal was expanded another 5,500 m2 (59,202 sq ft), and now has a capacity of 500,000 more passengers annually.
On 23 September 2006 a new terminal opened for charter flights.