Warsaw-Radom Airport, located some 110 km south of Warsaw, has opened for business again after a PLN 800-million (EUR 174.4 million) refit.
The airport will serve as a supplementary facility to Chopin, Warsaw’s primary airport.
Speaking at the opening ceremony Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Warsaw-Radom Airport would relieve the pressure on Chopin, which was more commonly known as Okecie.
“The airport of Warsaw Okecie is absolutely overloaded, so opening this airport makes great infrastructural and logistic sense,” he said.
He added that the airport “opens up the whole region”, and gave the city a chance to attract entrepreneurs and more investment.
PLL LOT, the Polish national airline, will offer regular connections to Paris, Rome, Preveza, Tirana and Varna from Radom.
The start of flights marks the rebirth of an airport that has had a troubled history.
The only public airport in Poland built without EU support – the city invested over PLN 100 million (EUR 21.8 million) in its construction – it originally began operating in May 2014 and, for a short time, offered flights to Riga, Berlin and Lviv.
But as of 2017 it was one of the worst-performing Polish airports, with only 9,903 passengers serviced that year, according to data from the Civil Aviation Office. In 2018, a court declared Port Lotniczy Radom bankrupt, but a lifeline came in the form of Polish Airports’ State Enterprise (PPL), which bought it and then invested some PLN 800 million (EUR 174.4 million).
After undergoing an almost total rebuild, the airport now boasts a modern terminal with a 30,000-square metre area. In addition to check-in desks and security checks, the building has a large commercial zone with restaurants, cafes, duty free shops, childcare rooms and playgrounds.
According to PPL, the airport will be able to handle around 1 million passengers a year at the beginning of its operation, and eventually over 3 million people a year.
The airport’s infrastructure allows it to handle popular aircraft operated by charter and low-cost carriers, such as Airbus A320. It can, however, also handle the large Boeing B787 Dreamliner.
Anna Dermont, a spokeswoman for PPL, announced last week that the Warsaw-Radom airport was ready for kick off.
“Three-day passenger tests, in which over 1,000 people participated, including airport and state services, confirmed that the Warsaw-Radom airport was 100% ready to receive its first passengers,” she said at the time. (PAP/Business World Magazine)