Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne airport — Clermont-Ferrand, France

Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne Airport occupies the plain of Aulnat just east of the city that gave the tire maker Michelin its start, and the two histories intertwine more than most realize: Michelin family money helped launch Air Inter, the domestic carrier that once used Clermont-Ferrand as a key hub linking provincial France. The extended main runway, unusually long for a French regional field, owes something to that industrial legacy and to decades of aircraft and tire testing amid the volcanic Auvergne landscape nearby. Passengers today mostly board low-cost carriers bound for Mediterranean and northern European leisure destinations, a far cry from the airport's busier Air Inter decades. Sitting over a thousand feet above sea level, considerably higher than most lowland French airports, the field looks out toward the Chaîne des Puys, a chain of dormant volcanic domes now recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage landscape. Clermont-Ferrand remains an administrative and university center for the wider Auvergne region, and its airport still handles a mix of regional business travel, holiday charters, and flight training.