Radom: investment in airport from which no one flies

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The Radom airport will soon be rebuilt. The airport will be a backup for Chopin Airport and CPK.

Rebuilding of runway

The Polish Airports State Enterprise (PPL) opened its offers for the reconstruction of the runway, and on 7 May 2019 the inauguration ceremony of the construction of the airport in Radom took place. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, announced that the Radom airport will be a spare airport for Chopin Airport in Warsaw and the Central Polish Airport (CPK).

Airport that nobody flies from

From the very beginning, the construction of the airport in Radom aroused controversy and doubts as to its economic viability.

The last plane landed in Radom in October 2017. According to data from the Civil Aviation Authority, within nine months of 2017, the airport in Radom handled almost 10 thousand passengers. For comparison, the number of passengers at Modlin airport is as high as 10 thousand per day. Currently, the port in Radom is the only airport in the country, where there is not a single permanent carrier.

Nevertheless, the government has announced that the airport will be expanded to a size that will be able to handle 3 million passengers per year. 3 million passengers in 2018 were served by the Modlin airport, which in terms of the number of passengers checked in is the sixth airport in the country (the largest airport in Poland, the Chopin airport in Warsaw served nearly 17 million passengers in 2018).

PLN 220m for the runway

On 23 April, bids were opened for the development of design documentation and the execution of reconstruction and extension of the runway at the airport. PPL will allocate approximately PLN 220m to finance the order.

Four companies took part in the tender:

• Budimex (value of the offer amounting to PLN 154.9m)
• Max Bogl Polska (PLN 146.6m)
• Consortium of Trakcja PRKII, AB Kauno Tiltai and Projekt Plus (PLN 169m)
• Strabag (PLN 164.6m)

New railway line CPK-Radom

At the end of April, Marek Suski, head of the Prime Minister’s political cabinet, announced that the CPK would be connected to Radom by a new railway line. According to Suski, until the CPK is established, Radom will be a backup airport for Chopin Airport in Warsaw.

On 29 April, the government adopted the list of railway lines of state importance, which is to enable efficient implementation of railway investments within the framework of the construction of the CPK.