Katowice Airport Plans Infrastructure Investment As Poland’s Market Keeps Growing

Katowice Airport (KTW), the fourth largest in Poland, has mapped out plans to invest more than $370 million to build a new passenger terminal and expand its cargo facilities amid expectations that the country’s aviation market will continue to flourish.

The airport—located about 150 mi. away from the proposed Centralny Port Komunikacyjny Airport (CPK) between Warsaw and Lodz—envisages the construction of a 49,000-m² (527,430-ft.²) terminal, built to the east of the existing passenger terminals in an area where the oldest civil part of the airport has stood since the 1960s.

Alongside the $236 million building, which will be connected via a tunnel to the existing airport railway station, the wider investment scheme includes new road infrastructure and a second cargo handling facility. A new multimodal goods and fuel delivery hub is also proposed, located in the southeastern part of the airport. This has already received European Union funding.

The plans are being progressed by engineering consultancy Arup alongside airport management company The Upper Silesian Aviation Group (GTL SA). Once completed, it is expected that KTW will be able to handle about 8 million passengers per year by 2028, while further development could increase capacity to 10 million annually by 2032.

GTL SA says it is advancing the project following an Arup-validated study that found traffic is forecast to hit 7.5 million passengers per year by 2028, up from a record 5.6 million in 2023. A separate report published by Poland’s Civil Aviation Authority also found that Katowice will be one of three Polish regional airports that will handle more than 10 million passengers by 2040.

Katowice Airport is located about 50 mi. from Kraków John Paul II International Airport to the east, 118 mi. from Wrocław Nicolaus Copernicus Airport to the west and 100 mi. from Lodz Airport to the north. Additionally, the airport’s wider catchment area includes the under-development CPK, seen as a long-term replacement for Warsaw Chopin Airport.

Although the new Polish government led by Donald Tusk—who became prime minister in December 2023—recently fired the supervisory board of CPK, four new members have since been appointed to push the project forward. There is a 2028 target opening date for CPK, which will have two parallel runways and capacity to handle 40 million passengers annually.

Poland’s desire to improve and expand its airport infrastructure follows a period of sustained airline growth in the country. The number of departure seats from and within the market rose from 15.4 million in 2014 to 26.8 million in 2019, with a full recovery from the pandemic achieved in 2023.

Much of this has been led by increased LCC penetration, with Ryanair and Wizz Air embroiled in a three-way battle for control of Poland’s skies with flag-carrier LOT Polish Airlines. LCCs accounted for about 47% of capacity in 2014, rising to more than 60% last year, analysis of data provided by OAG Schedules Analyser shows.

Looking at schedules for the forthcoming northern 2024 summer season, Ryanair, LOT and Wizz will collectively control almost 80% of seat capacity in Poland. Ryanair has a 32.8% share, followed by LOT on 24.1% and Wizz on 21%. Overall, Ryanair’s capacity will be 4% more than summer 2023, and LOT’s will be up by about 7.5%.

Wizz’s capacity is currently scheduled to be 2% higher, although the airline is pulling about 19 routes from the market as it grapples with the grounding of Airbus A320neo-family aircraft due to Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engine issues. By the end of March, the Hungarian ULCC will have about 40 aircraft on the ground, equivalent to almost 20% of its 207-aircraft fleet.

Despite this, Ryanair’s continued growth in Poland’s price-sensitive market, coupled with LOT’s year-on-year expansion, is likely to push overall capacity to record levels this summer, with almost 18.6 million departure seats scheduled to operate during the 2024 season. This compares with 17.3 million in 2023—the current record for a single travel period.