Growth takes off at Polish airports

According to The International Air Transport Association (IATA) only the Chinese market is growing more dynamically than the Polish one as far as airline transport is concerned. Figures confirm this: While in 2001 airports in Poland serviced 6.3 million passengers, in 2004 the number reached almost 9 million - a 41 percent increase. Alone in 2004 Polish runways experienced a massive increase in both flight operations and the number of passengers served. Warsaw's Chopin airport had 18 percent more passengers than in 2003, Kraków-Balice's figures rose by 42 percent, but it was Katowice's Pyrzowice airport which grew most rapidly, as 241 percent more passengers passed through it in 2004 in comparison to the previous year.

The figures provided by the Civil Aviation Office show that this growing trend has been maintained in the first five months of 2005.  Over 3.9 million passengers passed through twelve Polish airports, which represents a 37.9 percent increase in comparison to the corresponding period of 2003, when 2.8 million passengers were serviced. Warsaw's Chopin airport remains the country's biggest runway as around two-thirds of all airline passengers in Poland passed through it. The 2.5 million passengers served was a 23 percent increase year to year.

Katowice's Pyrzowice airport continued its impressive growth in 2005, as the number of passengers served has so far grown by 248 percent. Kraków-Balice, Poland's second largest airport, noted a significant increase with more than 124 percent more people passing through it than in the first five months of 2004.

Gdańsk's Rębiechowo and Wrocław's Strachowice also served more passengers than the year before, with the number of passengers growing by 41 percent and 14 percent respectively.