Hévíz–Balaton Airport Hévíz–Balaton Airport Hévíz–Balaton Airport , previously also known as "Sármellék International Airport" (), is an international airport in Hungary located west of Lake Balaton, south-southwest of the village of Sármellék, Zala County and Keszthely. It gains importance due to the proximity of Lake Balaton, Hungary's most important holiday resort and the thermal spas of Hévíz and Zalakaros. A military airport was already located here in the 1940s. It was paved in the 1950s and functioned as a Hungarian military airport until 1960, and as a Soviet military airport between 1960 and the Autumn of 1990. The current runways were constructed
Lake Balaton the late 19th century when landowners, ruined by "Phylloxera" attacking their grape vines, began building summer homes to rent out to the burgeoning middle classes. In Hungarian, the lake is known simply as "Balaton". It was called "lacus Pelsodis" or "Pelso" by the Romans. The name is Indo-European in origin (cf. Czech "pleso" ‘sinkhole, deep end of a lake’), later replaced by the Slavic *"bolto" (Czech "bláto", Slovak "blato", Polish "błoto") meaning 'mud, swamp' (from earlier Proto-Slavic "boltьno", , ). Slavic prince Pribina began to build in January 846 a fortress as his seat of power and several churches in