Regional airports witness booming passenger numbers

"The largest increase in the number of passengers was recorded by Warsaw airport. Almost one million more passengers used the airport," said Adam Borkowski, spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Office (ULC). Other substantial increases in the number of passengers were recorded by Kraków (760,000) and Katowice (over half a million). In terms of the number of passengers, Warsaw's Okęcie is still in the lead, but last year it lost about 7% of the market share. "In 2005 Warsaw's airport catered services to over 7 million passengers, which constitutes 61% of all passengers using domestic airports," said Borkowski. According to ULC analysis, the structure of journeys will change and by 2020 the majority of connections will be made directly through regional airports. "The forecasted growth envisages that in 15 years time the number of serviced passengers will reach even 39 million," said Borkowski. (Puls Biznesu, p. 7) M.M.