Warsaw Modlin
 

Hi,

Was just wondering how is this new airport coming along? is it on-track to make its deadline for its first flights in July?

Does anyone have any pictures?

I just don't want to book a flight with Ryanair if the airport is not finished and the flight is cancelled - such as Berlin Brandenburg :sad:

Cheers

Louis :D

The deadline is already met, look at the pictures:

That's very.......... orange! Do you think they had a particular tennant in mind?

Looks as though Poland might be showing the Germans how to open an airport (Berlin Brandenburg anyone?)......

Not really, WMI was supposed to be open before the Euros if not before.

WMI is a very simple operation - a low cost shed at an old military base.

BER is effectively three airports (TXL, THF & SXF) rolled into one, immense local politics and huge cost long before the opening problems.

It will have two parallel runways with a midfield terminal and a station complex right underneath.

Although I'd love to visit the city of Warsaw, I have no interest in visiting WMI unless I fly with an airline that goes there. I love the city of Berlin, and relish the opportunity to go again through the new BER, once it is finally up and running.

Local Polish press now saying that the Airport has not got clearance for commercial flights at the moment and still waiting for the CAA in Poland to grant such certificate. Appears to be some doubt over the opening of the airport as the latest say they "hope" to get a certificate by Mid July, with flights starting 16th July it's going to be tight to say the least.

Story originally broke on 27th June:
http://modlinlotnisko.********.ie/20...katem-ulc.html

Latest from Friday still states the problem has not been resolved:
Modlin czeka na certyfikat lotniska u

Use translate.google.com to translate.

Whilst the the original plan 3 years ago was to have it ready for the football, it was realised a couple of years ago now that it would be unlikely to be ready as to do so would rush and cut corners. At the time the financing was not in place which could have caused a massive delay.

And they were well aware of the dangers of something coming up during commissioning a la Brandenburg or rushing the commissioning and ending up with a T5 like fiasco.

Hence they decided not to open for the Euros which may seem justified now bearing in mind the current state of their certification process. Therefore it was never declared as an airport to UEFA for EURO 2012 flights during their final evaluation of Polish airport facilities.

Latest news on some of the commissioning and testing of the terminal

Modlin: Dzie

Dzie

Modlin na ostatniej prostej. Zd

Suzeman

The new Modlin airport has just been opened. Initially the first official flight was to be made by Ryanair tomorrow, then Wizz brought forward his first flight, scheduled to arrive from Budapest at 5 PM or so today. Finally, however, the airport's inauguration was carried by Ryanair, after all. This morning Boeing 737-8AS landed there as the extra flight carrying on board Micheal O'Leary himself.

Well, a fierce competition from the very beginning... :cool:Edit: And MOL did get his water-cannon salute greeting :ok: (image source: gazetaprawna.pl)

Some teething problems :}

Modlin Airport has troublesome first day - Warsaw Business Journal - Online Portal - wbj.pl

By all accounts it can't possibly be as bad as the old Etiuda terminal at Okecie/Chopin.

I personally would never fly from a new airport on its first full day of operation unless absolutely essential or I had plenty of time to spare - it's impossible to test a new airport so completely that nothing goes wrong. That being said most people buying tickets will not nevessarily know when an airport is opening.

However if the worst that happened was 12 people missing their flight and being given a transfer to a later flight at the airport's expense then it seems like a very small hiccup for a first day of full scale commercial operations

Starting operations from Modlin also involved a lot of work in unseen corners - such as ATC. Warsaw-Modlin was not on the map until recently (except as a light aircraft airfield) so new SID/STARs etc had to be designed and tested (plus instrument approach procedures). Traffic there increases the worlkoad at Warsaw APP to handle these arrivals and departures on top of the already fairly large traffic at Okecie. A bit similar to Paris-CDG APP handling Ryanair and Wizzair traffic in and out of Beauvais...

Cheers :cool:

Most probably ILS procedures were not too hard to design as there is no ILS in WMI at all (despite the promises/plans). :ugh::D:D
It's the usual Polish airport strategy: built as much/big terminals as you can and don't give a :mad: about how those aircraft will land. Not a single CAT III ILS in a country with a population of 40 million. Actually not even a CAT II ILS other than in WAW.
KRK, GDN, KTW, WRO, POZ, RZE, LCJ etc. are all CAT I. There was not even an approved LVP in KTW/GDN until 2011.

As did this Global Express landed 3 weeks ago. The empty FR 737 was neither the first aircraft nor the first commercial flight in WMI.

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/9...0292776677.jpg

Modlin transport
 

Does anybody know where to find details of surface transport at Modlin, particularly trains? The website looks to be a bit incomplete...

It seems that trains go to/from Warszawa Gdanska, but this is from second hand information.

Dziekuje

You've probably seen this already:

"(current situation)
There is a rail service between Modlin Airport and E-65 railway line connecting Warsaw and Gdańsk which, as provided by the European Agreement on Main International Railway Lines (AGC), is a part of the Paneuropean Transport Corridor No VI connecting the Polish sea border via Działdowo, Modlin, Warsaw with the southern border of Poland.

(future)
The Polish Railway Authority (PKP PLK S.A.) plans to modernize Modlin railway station and Warsaw East (Warszawa Wschodnia) Railway Station - Modlin railway line. There is a siding from Modlin railway station to the airport which, after modernization (widening, improvement of track parameters, connection of electric traction, construction of the station building and related infrastructure) will be used for passenger transport and cargo loading/ unloading. Thus, the airport will acquire a railway connection with Warsaw and, ultimately, Warsaw F. Chopin Airport. "

From Mazowiecki Port Lotniczy Warszawa-Modlin (but dated 2007!)

Edit: found this on TripAdvisor from February this year (which you may also have seen):

"Transport from Modlin airport in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki will look more or less like this: there will be a shuttle bus between the airport and the Modlin train stop. From there, currently the train takes 45 minutes to get to Warszawa Gdańska station which is an interchange with the metro. Pole Mokotowskie is 5 stations away. However, there are supposed to be trains which won't stop at so many stations as the current trains, so that it will be no more than a 30 minutes train ride. There are also plans to open a new SKM line, from Chopin Airport to Modlin Airport, going through Central/Downtown stations. No details available as yet."

According to this source: jeziorki.blog spot.com/2012/07/modlin-airport-connected-by-rail-but.html (no space in blog spot word, but the entire url is being blocked here apparently) the rail link to/from Modlin rail station is functioning already (+ free bus ride to the airport).

Quote:

"Not a single CAT III ILS in a country with a population of 40 million. Actually not even a CAT II ILS other than in WAW".

While I totally agree that a CAT II ILS at another Polish airport is long overdue (since it would make the choice of weather diversion easier when flying to WAW), I fail to see the relation between having a population of 40 million and having a CAT III procedure. This should be a matter of meteorology, full stop. Even in Poland in winter, there are very few occasions when a CAT III ILS approach would be necessary. The cost of maintaining a CAT III - standard ILS probably exceeds the likely benefit. Plus remember that not all airlines train their crews to CAT III minima (for the few times when it proves necessary), or have aircraft certified to those limits.

Cheers :cool:

:=

Unfortunately there are quite a lot of diversions, however it's not wintertime when it's bad but in spring/autumn.

We could use some CAT III runways with 13 aircraft based in Poland (all a/c and flight deck crew qualified for CAT IIIb)...

Do we know how the battle is going here at the moment? From what I have seen I can't see there being enough demand for the number of flights to some destinations with both carriers.

I was in Modlin last week and even for the four flights a day in London now numbers are not looking that good. The Ryanair flights, one a day seem to be running at very high load factors, and whilst Wizz are carrying more passengers than Ryanair a day because of the three flights the one flight a day that goes out the same time as FR seems to be struggling, looked to be about 50% if that load factor but the morning flight seems to be doing better. But then again when there is three flights a day the load is always going to spread thinner.

I can't see how it's going to be able to support 6-7 flights a day, it just won't be viable as far as I'm concerned. I reckon 5 flights a day at max are going to be tipping point for this route.I guess we will get to find out more when FR add the extra two flights a day who will really win the war on this route so to speak, but without doubt whilst FR's load factor on the London route is very good, it is only one flight a day compared to W6's three.

Oslo and Stockholm I get the impression for both carriers are struggling to some degree, as they always feature in the lowest fares, so here I can't see two operators being able to support the current frequency, they'll either have to reduce or one operator will have to pull out of the route.

It didn't take long. First diversions happened this morning (W6 and FR) to WAW. W6 first wave departures delayed as well earlier for RVR/300 as there's no LVP available.

Just returned from a great trip to Podlasie in Poland via Modlin. Only let down was the appalling airport. The Schengen departure gate is tiny with approx. 25 seats for what could be 189 passengers. Then 15 minutes before boarding and before the plane has even touched down, passengers are led out to a "holding pen" area and have to stand to wait there in the cold. I don't expect luxury padded seats or wall-to-wall cafes but I've been in much smaller airports that are infinitely more hospitable.

Sheep who are made to worship at the altar of short turnaround times ?

Sheep worshipping at altars? Much too much metaphor-mixing for one day := Two things happen to sheep at the altar: they get their throats slit and then they get burnt.

Note: Any parellels to the situation at Modlin are, of course, entirely accidental.

15+ flights diverted to WAW this week (WZZ and RYR). Some of them in 2-4000 m visibility for low ceiling. Lots of departure delays for low RVR & no LVP available. The CAT I. ILS promised to be operational in "october-november" (followed by CAT II. " in february-march") is eventually not even installed yet. Latest rumors says installation will start at the end of november which means that only non-precision approach will be available until (at least) the end of the year. :ugh:

If it goes on like this they will loose both airlines using WMI, I quess.

Much of Poland’s recent infrastructure is being paid for by EU handouts. No doubt in part this airport has been paid for by British tax payers.

@LTNman.

What actually are you pertaining to? I have never been to Modlin and live far from both UK and Poland, but still find your post slightly offensive. Indeed, Modlin Airport did get € 17m grant contributed from EU funds through the Regional Operating Programme (source), just a small slice of it originating from Britain.

My opinion? Pretty reasonable amount of money very well spent. The bigger sums of EU tax payers' money paid for constructing some idle airports in Spain (just to give an example), could be mentioned as a far less successful investment.

Much of UK's recent taxpayers are polish anyway...
At least it's used to supply Britain with baby sitters, bricklayers, plumbers and secretaries.

All Wizz flights will be moved from WMI to WAW between 17DEC-06JAN after recent disruptions for lack of ILS.

Have to say after the "fun" I've had in Poland this week including WMI, which I have a 0% success rate at landing at, I have to say it is about time the Poles stopped building their flashy new glass terminals and got their actual flying infrastructure sorted out. i.e. a few CAT 2/3 ILS systems on more than one end of the runway and resurface some of the ploughed fields they describe as runways.

CheekyVisual - there is a complex reasoning behind it - lets just say some allegedly believe that certain airports having certain infrastructure does not allegedly suit the interest of certain parties.

WMI
 

And there was me thinking that I was the only one with a 0% success rate of landing at WMI. Polish routes and winter do not make for a nice days work. It's long overdue for the installation of a a few cat 111 ILS systems at Polish airports.

The most succesful day brought 19 diversions (practically the whole traffic of the day) for "low" ceiling (with 1000+ visibility) - or at least I counted that much. I'm not a big fan of FR but it was painful to see 11 diversions, even ferry flights (WRO-WMI & WAW-WMI) of previously diverted aircraft diverted again to WAW...

The good thing about FR is rather than cancel flights, they try and operate them from other airports, and generally they'll always divert to the nearest airport pretty much all of the time as long as it's open.

Other, especially traditional carriers will just cancel the return flight if the outbound flight gets diverted to another airport or refuse to land anywhere other than a destination that is normally served by the airline.

As stated previously in another thread, it's pretty sensible for Wizz to move and they did the right thing, as pretty much all aircraft running routes from WMI are based there meaning one delay heavily hits the rest of the schedule at WMi as such plane is going to have to operate to a few destinations a day.

With FR with all the flights coming from other bases, they've been able to allow extra crews to pick up the later parts of some shifts rather than the originally scheduled crew that is being heavily delayed.

Well, business as usual today. BVA is already cancelled, NYO, CIA and BCN flights diverted to WAW. 1600m vis with OVC005...

Beuvais is being hit by a strike which has forced a number of cancellations.

The problems at Modlin at the moment are snow related which is being cleared from the runway but is quite heavy apparently. There are also (again) problems with WAW who are saying they can take very few diversions at the moment.

Wizz and FR have had such problems ever since the start of the winter with WAW being less than accommodating for diverted flights even though that airport is nowhere near full and has plenty of extra capacity even after W6 have moved there.

It's likely that there could be some diversions to Lodz this afternoon, however due to weather conditions road transport is said to be taking much longer so I would not be surprised if there were some cancellations later.

There was no significant snow today in Warsaw, only -SN for 20-30 mins in the afternoon. All diverted FR flights approached WMI and went around at DH for low ceiling before proceeding to WAW/LCJ.

Regarding WAW refusing diversions: not a single Wizz flight was refused by them despite on some days 10-12 flights were operated from Okecie.

There was not snow for that long but snow there was that effected the area, although Chopin got off better than Modlin when it comes to this.

I know for a fact that Wizz had some flights that were not permitted to either operate from WAW or land there (which were cancelled) and Ryanair certainly have had the same which has meant they've gone to Lodz although I'd expect WAW to be more accommodating of Wizz because they stand a chance of winning their custom when Ryanair would never go back there having been absent for many years.

On a completely unrelated topic, the ILS debate indeed is a big debate there right now, but for Modlin to ever fulfill it's potential and to stop problems like this in the future, I strongly believe that it needs to have independent ownership.

Some would say the lack of ILS at Modlin suits some people down to the ground, after all there are certain people who would lose out if the airport ran 100% smoothly. There are two obvious parties, which I won't name.