A NATO consortium is expected to fund the $30 million development cost. The airport will play a role in transporting logistics materials and provisions to crews serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Approximately 200 foreigners will move to Pápa with their families in order to work at the airbase and most of them will come from the US as the C-17 pilots are all Americans.

NATO C-17 air base in Pápa?
September 5 2007

A decision is expected in October on whether four NATO C-17 giant transport planes will be based in Hungary at the Pápa airfield. A 90-member commission of experts from the countries funding the transport planes visited the air-field last week and found that it met all re-quirements. Another potential site is the US air base in Ramstein, Germany.

Hungarian Defence Minister Imre Szekeres sug-gested at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in June that Pápa could host the C-17s. Since then foreign experts have visited the airfield three times and examined the local education system, health care, recreation and accommodation facilities.