Spreading its wings

Kamil Kamiński, president of the board of Kraków-Balice International Airport Ltd. (KBMPL) recently announced that his company intends to invest last year's net profit, estimated at zł.25 million, in expanding the airport to handle servicing three million passengers per year as well as fulfill the requirements of the Schengen Agreement, which Poland will sign next year.

To bring the airport up to specs, the KBMPL will construct a new 2,800 sqm hall to separate intra-EU travelers from those entering from outside the Schengen zone. Passengers traveling within the EU will only have to go through a security check, and not through immigration. Some zł.22 million in the state budget has also been earmarked for this purpose. The hall is scheduled for completion in February 2007.

The KBMPL also plans to build a new fire-engine building worth zł.15 million, with enough room for five vehicles. This will allow space for another arrival terminal of 36,000 sqm to be built. The airport will also host a multi-storey parking structure, as well as the final stop of the railbus linking the airport with Kraków's city center.

Balice is the second-biggest airport in Poland and Poland's leader in terms of cheap flights. It reached the record number of 1.6 million passengers in 2005 and wants to reach two million this year. "It's not that we expect an immediate increase in the number of passengers. We want to be ready for new passengers when they appear," says Piotr Pietrzak, spokesperson for the airport's management board.