Originally Posted by
DublinPole
Radom Airport was built in 2014 and for years nobody was interested in flying there apart from a few short term and failed routes from various small carriers, it went bankrupt and very shortly after PPL bought it out of liquidation. It's now having hundreds of millions spent on it, to be used as an auxiliary airport for the Warsaw area, where it's been widely speculated that charters and low cost airlines from Chopin will be forced out to. PPL are the only shareholder and it will not be anywhere near as significant competitor for Chopin as Modlin, because a) PPL will control it and B) it's further out.
There's been a number of changes to the rules in Chopin Airport recently, such as voluntarily prohibiting very early departures or late arriving flights, bans on refuelling with passengers onboard and offering financial incentives for those airlines who were transferring passengers, that clearly benefit certain airlines as well as cause issues for others. PPL will tell you that this does not prove that they are favouring anyone, since the same rules apply to each airline. There's also been complaints by airlines of extended wait times for buses and bridges to arrive, being given very distant parking spots among other things.
There's a local political side to this as well, as the area that Modlin is, is not controlled by the ruling party whereas Radom is a big area for the current government, so you know, there's votes to be won here as well.
Latest - The Masovian Voivodeship has agreed to fund 50,000,000zl of it's own funds into the airport made possible in conjunction of issue of new shares.
As such the shareholder percentages will change as follows
Masovian Voivodeship 42.3% (from 32.7%)
Millitary Property Agency 28.5% (from 33.3%)
PPL (Polish State Airports) 25.2% (from 29.4%)
Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki local government 4% (from 5%)
However this is likely to only be a temporary reprieve to give the airport some breathing space and will only allow minor changes to the infrastructure and temporary buildings.