Preparing for take off

6th January 2012

There were announcements this week that 2012 will see the opening of two new airports in Poland.

The first is former military airport Modlin - based just outside Warsaw - which it is believed is costing approximately PLN 300 mln to modernise and renovate.

But while reports state that it will be up and operating in time for the Euro 2012 football tournament, the airport’s vice president Marcin Danil has already stated the terminal may not be completed.

“We might find that the terminal will not be ready until nearer the end,” he said in Gazeta Wyborcza. “In this case, passengers will use a tent as a temporary measure.”

A second airport known as ‘Swidnik’ near the eastern city of Lublin is also scheduled to open, albeit not until autumn.

The first airport in Poland to be built from scratch in almost 70 years, Swidnik plans to accommodate 300,000 passengers in its first year, a figure which it hopes will eventually rise to 1 million - half the amount that Modlin hopes to serve.

Reports claim that both airports plan to provide both low cost and chartered flights.