Warsaw’s new low-cost airport ready for take off

Michael O'Leary at Modlin airport: photo - PAP/Rafal Guz

Finishing touches are being put to the main arrival hall with information boards and signposts to be placed on access roads within the next few days.

The first flight has been scheduled to arrive there on 15 July, while regular air traffic will be touching down and taking off on the following day.

According to Edyta Mikołajczyk, Modlin airport’s spokesperson, this is the first airport in Poland created with a specific customer in mind - low-fare airlines, which have been present on the Polish market for the last seven years and growing dynamically.

“Poles fly more often and want to do so more comfortably and cheaper,” she says.

Among the low-cost carriers servicing the Modlin airport will be OLT Express - a new Polish airline which began operating domestic routes in April - as well as Wizz Air and Ryanair.

The Irish-based Ryanair pulled out of using Warsaw’s Chopin airport in 2008 after a dispute over landing fees.

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, who was at a press conference in Warsaw, Tuesday, welcomed the decision to launch the first low-cost airport in Poland.

“The airport is fine. I think the problem is Chopin [Warsaw’s international airport]. It's much too expensive […] not just the airport costs but also the handling costs are ridiculously high.”

O’Leary has long complained that airports such as Warsaw’s Chopin airport grew on the backs of low-cost airlines, though they then promptly put prices up, forcing those airlines to look for cheaper places to operate from.

“That's why Modlin provides such an opportunity. It's still not particularly cheap here but it has lower costs than at Chopin airport, and it gives us an important lower-cost gateway,” he said. (di/pg)