There is not really so much of a problem in the winter, as almost a dozen routes at the airport are seasonal, whilst others have lower frequency in the winter.
But during the height of the summer from late morning to the evening it is always terribly busy, which led to temporary tents being errected to house passengers, there was even a huge waning message up on the Krakow website for most of the summer saying to allow much extra time for security as it could take at least an hour to clear.
I remember seeing about 18 flights go out between 8am and 10.30am one day when I was there and 10 were due to leave in the space of an hour. all it took was two of the earliest of those ten to be delayed and it was meltdown and a backlog of planes waiting for gates and way more passengers airside than the terminal could accommodate.
This of course then led to a few flights arriving at once which meant baggage was swamped with only the larger belt in use or about 5-6 flights that just arrived and long delays at passport control. There are some flights however that do arrive in quieter periods but for a lot of the day it's not uncommon for about 5-6 flights to start boarding at roughly the same time, and the same number to land at the same time and that is where the problem starts.
Unfortunately for years the airport has been growing at a rapid rate and the authorities in Poland have not wanted to invest in the airport despite the fact for some time it's been obvious that an expansion is needed. The area has huge potential for growth but its been suffocated by the terminal that is now far too small for it's needs. Ideally they need to increase the number of baggage belts to four, double the number of gates, increase the security channels and passport control officers as this is where the bottlenecks are.
Only now are the tenders going out for it to be built. and it was believed years ago that the terminal would be doubled in size already by now, but for various reasons, it was postponed many times and now they believe that 2015 is a more realistic date, which is a shame because the airports not going to be able to do much natural growth in that time. There is now also the fear that if LOT are given a 1.5bn zl bailout from the Polish government that they are looking for, this may impact other airports such as Krakow and Modlin, which it looks like will need an expansion in the next few years also.
Last edited by DublinPole; 12th Dec 2012 at 19:01.