Terminal illness

Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport's Terminal 2 is still not fully operational, having failed to pass fire-safety tests. At the moment the only working section of Terminal 2 is the arrivals lounge. The new facility is badly needed, as Terminal 1, which was designed to serve 3.5 million passengers annually, currently serves 6.8 million.

Although Terminal 2 was expected to be operational by the end of 2005, the launch has been postponed several times - July 31, 2007 was the most recent deadline builders were unable to meet. During a press briefing at the airport on July 20, the Minister of Transport, Jerzy Polaczek, described the situation as "scandalous" and placed responsibility squarely on the contractor, the Spanish-Polish consortium of Ferrovial, Budimex and Lamela.

"At the moment no opening date has been specified," Artur Burak, spokesperson for "Polish Airports" State Enterprise (PPL), told WBJ, adding that completion of the terminal depends entirely on the contractor. Burak stressed that the terminal's defects, although not as numerous as previously declared by PPL, still concern important areas such as the fire-safety and luggage-distribution systems, as well as arrival/departure boards. In response to the repeated delays, PPL has declared that it will impose a fine of $74,000 (zł.205,492) for each day that the Terminal's opening has been delayed, beginning from May 1, 2007.

For its part, the consortium says the criticisms are totally unfounded, and has refused to pay any fines. Krzysztof Kozioł, the consortium's spokesperson, stressed that the delay in the completion is due to the fact that the construction permit came into effect almost two years after the tender was won. He said that PPL's numerous requests for modifications to the project also contributed to the delay. Consequently, the deadline for the Terminal 2 completion was postponed to April 30, 2007 - through no fault of the consortium, Kozioł claimed - and the total value of the contract changed from $198.9 (zł.552) million to $247.7 (zł.687.7) million.

Kozioł also argued that although the terminal was ready for use in April 2007, the acceptance of the project was held up, despite the fact that it complied with international norms and was accepted by an independent verifier agreed upon by both sides.

Kozioł claimed that the flaws cited by Burak are very few, and that most of them have already been rectified. "We have the approval of almost all the institutions needed - the National Labour Inspectorate (PIP), the Regional Inspectorate for Environmental Protection (WIOŚ), and the Voivodship Sanitary and Epidemiological Station (SANEPID) - and the only remaining test by the State Fire Service is to take place in the near future," he declared. The next round of fire safety tests were scheduled to begin as WBJ went to press.