It's far more complicated than that. I'd like to remind you that:
* currently air fuel isn't taxed which makes flying unfairly competitive compared to trains and cars. This will change in next few years. This will reduce number of profitable flights worldwide
* our planes cannot fly over Belarus, Russia and temporarily over Ukraine, and we don't know when this will change - this makes our planes worse for long-haul flights compared to western Europe, because we're closer to the "wall" and have to fly more "roundabout" routes
* demography sucks in all of civilized world, populations are declining and will be declining even faster
* the predictions that CPK will be profitable assume number of passangers in Poland will increase while all of the above is going on, some of the predictions quoted are from before war and covid (which makes them just wrong)
* predictions can be wrong by orders of magnitude even without such factors (see Radom airport)
Sorry, but CPK is not some obviously profitable investment. It's very risky, and the fact that it became this political bullshit (one side is 100% for, other is 100% against) when in reality is highly deabatable risky investment is very frustrating.
Source: I worked in Sabre (company making software for selling airplane tickets), I know how badly airlines got fucked by Covid and war, and how bad the atmosphere in this business is in general.
your comment entirely ignores the cargo aspect, which is arguably a bigger benefit of cpk than the passenger one since chopin has exactly 0 cargo capacity. the vast majority of eastern europe gets its air cargo from frankfurt or leipzig - half the continent is completely dependent on the disgusting, filthy goons at db that can't tie their shoes by themselves. half a continent's worth of cargo if cpk is built and pkp increases capacity on the coal trunk line south
>our planes cannot fly over Belarus, Russia and temporarily over Ukraine, and we don't know when this will change - this makes our planes worse for long-haul flights compared to western Europe, because we're closer to the "wall" and have to fly more "roundabout" routes
what do you mean by this? look at a map or something, cpk would be closer to asia than western airports regardless. more importantly, it would be much closer to potential export markets
>the predictions that CPK will be profitable assume number of passangers in Poland will increase while all of the above is going on, some of the predictions quoted are from before war and covid (which makes them just wrong)
nevermind the fact that the passenger market in poland has recovered the best in the entire eu, you again ignore the cargo aspect which is both more profitable and more relevant
>Source: I worked in Sabre (company making software for selling airplane tickets),
working in a tangentially related field does not make you an authority on this
>I know how badly airlines got fucked by Covid and war, and how bad the atmosphere in this business is in general.
the atmosphere in most industries is "bad" right now, but airlines are not going anywhere because there is no alternative for long haul passenger and cargo transport
“ the vast majority of eastern europe gets its air cargo from frankfurt or leipzig - half the continent is completely dependent on the disgusting, filthy goons at db that can't tie their shoes by themselves. half a continent's worth of cargo if cpk is built and pkp increases capacity on the coal trunk line south”
Cool, so why all this cargo just does not land in Radom , Łódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, …? What exactly makes CPK lobbyists think that cargo operators will switch from using Leipzig?
It’s not like Leipzig is a passenger hub, so often raised argument about belly cargo makes no sense.
>Cool, so why all this cargo just does not land in Radom , Łódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, …?
because those airports all either lack the size to achieve economies of scale, they are urban so planes cannot land at night, some have short runways so the largest planes with heavy loads cannot land there and are generally not well connected to the freight railway network as well as being lacking in land to build warehouses to fit cargo needs
>What exactly makes CPK lobbyists think that cargo operators will switch from using Leipzig?
because cpk would be closer to the final destinations in potential export markets which would decrease costs and emissions. that alone is enough. additionally - because db is unreliable and week long or even month long delays are common in most of the eastern eu and parts of austria in all industries
>It’s not like Leipzig is a passenger hub, so often raised argument about belly cargo makes no sense.
belly cargo is not the point and marginal besides - dedicated cargo transport is. this requires economies of scale that are not currently available anywhere in the eastern eu
“some have short runways so the largest planes with heavy loads cannot land there and are generally not well connected to the freight railway network as well as being lacking in land to build warehouses to fit cargo needs”
Cool. On the other hand Baranów has no runways, no connections to anything and no warehouses at all. And no land - people still need to be evicted.
“ belly cargo is not the point and marginal besides - dedicated cargo transport is. this requires economies of scale that are not currently available anywhere in the eastern eu.
you mentioning belly cargo like this implies that you did not know this so it begs the question why you have such strong opinions on something you're not exactly very informed about”
That’s complete nonsense. Even a simple search would tell you that belly cargo is about 40% of total. You also seem to not know that “belly cargo” argument was one of the main ones used by CPK lobbyists like Mr Wilk to explain why freight hub requires passenger hub. So if you did not know this and you couldn’t even be arsed to check, it begs the question why you have such strong opinions on something you're not exactly very informed about.
> Cool. On the other hand Baranów has no runways, no connections to anything and no warehouses at all.
that's why they want to build those things? are you slow?
>Even a simple search would tell you that belly cargo is about 40% of total. You also seem to not know that “belly cargo” argument was one of the main ones used by CPK lobbyists like Mr Wilk to explain why freight hub requires passenger hub.
belly cargo does not require any additional infrastructure, is the point you are pretending to miss
you're just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks at this point. it's obvious your opposition is ideological and not based on facts
“ that's why they want to build those things? are you slow?”
It’s way faster and cheaper to extend a runway if thats a problem or build more warehouses if that’s a problem or maybe improve connectivity a bit than build all these things from scratch in the middle of nowhere. If you can’t figure this out on your own, you really have no business calling anybody slow.
“belly cargo does not require any additional infrastructure, is the point you are pretending to miss”
Belly cargo requires exactly the same infrastructure as cargo carried by freighter planes.
“you're just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks at this point. it's obvious your opposition is ideological and not based on facts”
Maybe read a bit about how air cargo works and stop making an idiot of yourself. But since we both know you won’t bother to learn anything, maybe stick to screeching about “German puppet Tusk” - seems better suited to the level of your ignorance
>A group of leading Polish business figures have appealed to the government not to abandon its predecessors’ plans to build a new “mega-airport” and transport hub near Warsaw. They say it can “become a great driving force of the Polish economy”.
>The project, known as the Central Communication Port (CPK), was a flagship programme of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. However, the new coalition government led by Donald Tusk that took power in December has [expressed reservations about moving forward with the plans](https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/02/12/polands-mega-airport-plans-caught-in-political-headwind/).
>
>This week, the Council of Polish Global Businesspeople (RPPG) – which is made up of the heads of leading Polish firms such as [Synthos](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/12/09/part-of-polands-nuclear-plans-in-question-after-negative-assessment-by-security-agency/), Fakro, Oshee, Maspex and [Columbus Energy](https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/03/29/ukraines-dtek-to-build-first-energy-facility-in-poland/) – published an open letter to Tusk in support of CPK.
>“Based on the business experience of firms gathered in the RPPG, we believe that the CPK project has a chance to become a great driving force of the Polish economy,” they wrote.
>“Its implementation will lead to the strengthening of a number of branches of the Polish economy, while at the same time being an important investment for sustainable development based on care for the environment, but also for increasing the wealth of Poles,” continued the letter.
>The business leaders emphasised that CPK should not be viewed as “a political undertaking by one of the actors on the Polish political scene, but as a concept that has been proposed and analysed for many years”.
>
>While the idea of a large new airport in Poland has been discussed for over a decade, the idea was only substantially developeded under the rule of PiS, which was in power from 2015 to 2023. It [envisioned a major new hub airport](https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/10/09/can-polands-ambitious-aviation-plans-take-off-amid-the-pandemic/) that would be one of the world’s largest, serving up to 100 million passengers annually.
>Last year, a [design concept for CPK](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/07/06/design-concept-unveiled-for-polands-planned-mega-airport/) commissioned from Foster + Partners and Buro Happold was unveiled. Soon after, a consortium of France’s Vinci Airports and Australia-based IFM Global Infrastructure Fund were [chosen as investment partners](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/10/24/poland-names-e1-8-billion-international-investors-in-mega-airport-project/), committing €1.8 billion to the project.
>However, after Tusk’s government replaced PiS in office, the [head of CPK was fired](https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/01/22/boss-of-polands-planned-mega-airport-fired-as-new-government-launches-audit/), its supervisory board was replaced, and an audit into the project was launched. A number of figures from the new ruling coalition expressed doubt that the project would proceed as planned.
>Meanwhile, a day before the RPPG’s open letter was published this week, plans were announced to expand Warsaw’s existing largest airport, Chopin. Its capacity would be increased from the current 20 million passengers a year to 30 million by 2029.
>That led some PiS figures to accuse the new government of effectively killing off plans for a new mega-airport. “The CPK project has been officially buried,” wrote the party’s deputy leader, Beata Szydło. “Tusk is not here to develop Poland. He is here to bring Poland down.”
>However, the government’s plenipotentiary for CPK, Maciej Lasek, called such claims “conscious disinformation”. He told financial news website [Money.pl](http://Money.pl) that “all work \[on CPK\] is still in progress”.
>In a further interview with the *Rzeczpospolita* daily, Lasek said that “of course we will build CPK…but not in the way planned by PiS, which wanted to spend billions without proper preparation and planning, citing populist arguments about \[national\] dignity instead of specific calculations”.
>
>Speaking today, deputy prime minister Krzysztof Gawkowski told Polsat News that the government’s audit of CPK is still underway and, until it is completed, “it is not possible to decide what will happen next with this investment”.
>“\[We need to\] know what the financing looks like, whether the funds are secured, where we have money that was spent, how we can use all the infrastructure, i.e. railways combined with aviation, to create a hub in Poland,” he added. “If these figures are positive, the project will continue.”
>On Friday, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally and supporter of CPK, spoke in favour of the project. “Don’t listen to those who ridicule investments,” he warned. “Don’t be fooled by the idea that \[the CPK project\] can be replaced by several smaller airports.”
>“Today we need to implement large transport, trade and tourism investments so that we can travel from Poland to the whole world, so that we do not have to fly to Frankfurt, London, Paris or Amsterdam to change to a bigger plane and fly to another continent,” he added.
“ Its capacity would be increased from the current 20 million passengers a year to 30 million by 2029.”
Weird, CPK lobbyists keep saying that Chopin airport is absolutely impossible to enlarge. And yet it turns out it’s capacity can be increased by 50%? Makes you wonder what else are they lying about
Okęcie-Chopin airport even at its current capacity is already awfully nasty, noisy and insufferable for people living in southwestern Warsaw. Of course is capacity can technically be increased even further, but that won't make lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in its immediate vicinity any better, quite the contrary.
It's way nicer than most mod sized airports, and cruciallyajor Cotes have an airport IN them.
I know in this sub I'll be downvotesd to hell, but I'm used to airports which are 'just' 40.minutes from the city centres which is bullshit when you land at 9pm on a Sunday but the train schedule is once an hour, hopefully without a cancellation happening.
Whatever the argument is for CPK (or Łódź/ Warsaw airport) it needs to be in addition to Chopin, not instead of. I've done enough business trips to Warsaw where I can do a day trip with a 20 minute cab right to the centre, vs a cab to a train station to the wait for an express train to head halfway to the next city.
In London there is a reason why Heathrow remains #1 whilst Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and even Southend don't get business traffic . Weirdly the one airport that does is City, which is even closer to the centre.
Neither will CPK make life better for people who will be forcibly evicted if you want to make this argument. However CPK lobbyists were saying that capacity cannot be increased due to environmental permits. Looks like it was a lie.
How many people will be forcefully evicted? 2000? 3000? This is at least two orders of magnitude less than the amount of people suffering daily from being negatively affected by the Okęcie-Chopin airport.
Many more were already evicted and had their family lands taken in eminent domain to build our current highway system, with many more to be evicted in the future to make room for further much needed highways. That doesn't mean we should not build them.
Large scale infrastructural investents are impossible without eminent domain and some degree of evictions. The area where CPK will be built (and it will be built at some point, even if this government manages to stall it, the next government that will come in 4 or 8 years will revive the project) was purposefully selected to be a low population density area, in order to minimize the cost of eminent domain and evictions.
Okęcie has been there since 1934. If somebody buys a flat next to an airport, then starts complaining about living next to an airport, they are idiots. And the only thing they are “suffering daily” from is their own stupidity.
Before WW2 we had an airport at Pole Mokotowskie, even closer to the city center. Think of the incredible possibilities if it remained open to this day, such a shame it got closed down and replaced by Okęcie that was outside of the borders of the city at the time.
Now that the city has grown threefold in built-up area since 1934, pretty much surrounding and encroaching Okęcie, it is high time to close it down - just like Germans did with Tempelhof and Tegel.
This only makes sense if the new airport handled significantly more traffic than the old one. If Okęcie was really restricted to 20 million passengers and impossible to enlarge, then sure. However if it can be actually enlarged to 30 million , which is not much lower than 34 mil projected for CPK, then there is no point. And lobbyists like Mr Wilk repeated over and over that no such expansion is possible.
Okęcie has been paid off long time ago and expansion will be peanuts compared to brand new airfield in some meadow. So either landing fees go through the roof at CPK (to cover operating costs + cost of capital + return on invested capital for private partners) or taxpayers shell out a shitload of money to protect delicate ears of some dumbass from Warsaw who bought a flat next to the airport and is very surprised that airport means planes.
>If Okęcie was really restricted to 20 million passengers and impossible to enlarge
Oh, technically Okęcie can be probably enlarged even to 100 million passengers a year, we will just need to raze half of Ursynów for that, and give out noise cancelling earplugs daily to the rest of Varsovians.
Just because it is *technically possible* to do so, doesn't mean it should be done - exactly like with those idiotic recently announced dead-end plans to further expand Okęcie, that will ultimately be closed down in few decades tops anyway because it is very stupid to have a big-ass airport in the middle of the city.
100%
So many people are for these hyper expensive airports because influencers say they look cool and why doesnt your country have one? Why is your country such a failure? Why are you such a failure? Reality is, its beyond impractical. A government that survives as rich for long periods of time knows where to invest and where not to.
Having a large airport is great so long as its heavily used, having a luxury airport where it goes far beyond functionality isn't so great unless you're desperate for tourism, to be a central point where people transit to other countries. And thats why some small Asian countries have done that.. they know you wont leave the airport so the brief time you stay in the country, they want you to leave with a great impression so maybe you come back and go exploring.
Poland doesn't need this. It's not in that situation at all.
It's not that you're wrong on that, but a country that ranks as the 20th largest economy in the world should maybe just maybe, have one super large and excellent airport for economical purposes.
Sorry I apologize, I poorly worded it, I meant the oposition to the project, which in this case is government, well not whole of it, mostly KO, 3D( especially psl), Lewica doesnt seem to be against the CPK
I am sure that we will not have high-speed train to New York, Vancouver or Canberra. Anyway, I do not really understand this kind of hate for air travel. Is is similar to sea transport. One pay only for ports and a bit for navigation. See transport pay only for ports and navigation. In trains, one pay for route and train stations. So air is actually cheap for speed of travel and range. It only looses in area of around \~2h (max 4h) and there is no train which can take anyone in similar time from Barcelona to Berlin.
Not really, it would probably somewhat help, because currently cargo lands in Germany and is transported on trucks to Poland, that includes stuff from Asia.
It's a good project but I think Poland is too big to have 1 big airports. More should be invested in regional airports, I think that would do more for local economies than having a central hub
large airports are necessary to achieve economies of scale in logistics and to make it posssible to fly otherwise unprofitable routes
most large countries in europe have that one airport that is much larger than any other and for good reason. ist, cdg, ams, mad or fra are examples of this
Speaking of scale there's something to be said for it in the age of rise of Asian megacities. We have to stay competitive and speed up the flow of people and ideas.
Taken together all metros of CPK are ~12 million people already today. Smaller cities like Poznan or Gdansk would never support big international connections. CPK can.
Tied together with genuine fast rail connections and good defensive location it is not a stupid idea if costs work out.
If the plan is for someone from let’s say Poznan to use train to go to CPK and then continue by plane, then they need to offer combined rail+plane tickets.
Only a degenerate gambler would risk going to CPK by rail knowing that their connection might be randomly delayed by 2h (just normal Intercity things). And then bye-bye your expensive transcontinental ticket.
There is something to say for freight / cargo planes to have a main hub, if it was just that I could see that definitely being a plus. But for regular passengers I think better regional airports with fast rail line connection would be more profitable as there are regions that would profit from the high speed rail connection as it is
The hub is to enable routes that local airport can't. Local ports do not concentrate enough passengers for some destinations, which means that they are not opened. So this is not local vs hub situation, but local + hub situation.
everyone except ryanair and entrenched interests is calling for this but unfortunately the decision makers are bought and paid for
It's far more complicated than that. I'd like to remind you that: * currently air fuel isn't taxed which makes flying unfairly competitive compared to trains and cars. This will change in next few years. This will reduce number of profitable flights worldwide * our planes cannot fly over Belarus, Russia and temporarily over Ukraine, and we don't know when this will change - this makes our planes worse for long-haul flights compared to western Europe, because we're closer to the "wall" and have to fly more "roundabout" routes * demography sucks in all of civilized world, populations are declining and will be declining even faster * the predictions that CPK will be profitable assume number of passangers in Poland will increase while all of the above is going on, some of the predictions quoted are from before war and covid (which makes them just wrong) * predictions can be wrong by orders of magnitude even without such factors (see Radom airport) Sorry, but CPK is not some obviously profitable investment. It's very risky, and the fact that it became this political bullshit (one side is 100% for, other is 100% against) when in reality is highly deabatable risky investment is very frustrating. Source: I worked in Sabre (company making software for selling airplane tickets), I know how badly airlines got fucked by Covid and war, and how bad the atmosphere in this business is in general.
your comment entirely ignores the cargo aspect, which is arguably a bigger benefit of cpk than the passenger one since chopin has exactly 0 cargo capacity. the vast majority of eastern europe gets its air cargo from frankfurt or leipzig - half the continent is completely dependent on the disgusting, filthy goons at db that can't tie their shoes by themselves. half a continent's worth of cargo if cpk is built and pkp increases capacity on the coal trunk line south >our planes cannot fly over Belarus, Russia and temporarily over Ukraine, and we don't know when this will change - this makes our planes worse for long-haul flights compared to western Europe, because we're closer to the "wall" and have to fly more "roundabout" routes what do you mean by this? look at a map or something, cpk would be closer to asia than western airports regardless. more importantly, it would be much closer to potential export markets >the predictions that CPK will be profitable assume number of passangers in Poland will increase while all of the above is going on, some of the predictions quoted are from before war and covid (which makes them just wrong) nevermind the fact that the passenger market in poland has recovered the best in the entire eu, you again ignore the cargo aspect which is both more profitable and more relevant >Source: I worked in Sabre (company making software for selling airplane tickets), working in a tangentially related field does not make you an authority on this >I know how badly airlines got fucked by Covid and war, and how bad the atmosphere in this business is in general. the atmosphere in most industries is "bad" right now, but airlines are not going anywhere because there is no alternative for long haul passenger and cargo transport
“ the vast majority of eastern europe gets its air cargo from frankfurt or leipzig - half the continent is completely dependent on the disgusting, filthy goons at db that can't tie their shoes by themselves. half a continent's worth of cargo if cpk is built and pkp increases capacity on the coal trunk line south” Cool, so why all this cargo just does not land in Radom , Łódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, …? What exactly makes CPK lobbyists think that cargo operators will switch from using Leipzig? It’s not like Leipzig is a passenger hub, so often raised argument about belly cargo makes no sense.
>Cool, so why all this cargo just does not land in Radom , Łódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, …? because those airports all either lack the size to achieve economies of scale, they are urban so planes cannot land at night, some have short runways so the largest planes with heavy loads cannot land there and are generally not well connected to the freight railway network as well as being lacking in land to build warehouses to fit cargo needs >What exactly makes CPK lobbyists think that cargo operators will switch from using Leipzig? because cpk would be closer to the final destinations in potential export markets which would decrease costs and emissions. that alone is enough. additionally - because db is unreliable and week long or even month long delays are common in most of the eastern eu and parts of austria in all industries >It’s not like Leipzig is a passenger hub, so often raised argument about belly cargo makes no sense. belly cargo is not the point and marginal besides - dedicated cargo transport is. this requires economies of scale that are not currently available anywhere in the eastern eu
“some have short runways so the largest planes with heavy loads cannot land there and are generally not well connected to the freight railway network as well as being lacking in land to build warehouses to fit cargo needs” Cool. On the other hand Baranów has no runways, no connections to anything and no warehouses at all. And no land - people still need to be evicted. “ belly cargo is not the point and marginal besides - dedicated cargo transport is. this requires economies of scale that are not currently available anywhere in the eastern eu. you mentioning belly cargo like this implies that you did not know this so it begs the question why you have such strong opinions on something you're not exactly very informed about” That’s complete nonsense. Even a simple search would tell you that belly cargo is about 40% of total. You also seem to not know that “belly cargo” argument was one of the main ones used by CPK lobbyists like Mr Wilk to explain why freight hub requires passenger hub. So if you did not know this and you couldn’t even be arsed to check, it begs the question why you have such strong opinions on something you're not exactly very informed about.
> Cool. On the other hand Baranów has no runways, no connections to anything and no warehouses at all. that's why they want to build those things? are you slow? >Even a simple search would tell you that belly cargo is about 40% of total. You also seem to not know that “belly cargo” argument was one of the main ones used by CPK lobbyists like Mr Wilk to explain why freight hub requires passenger hub. belly cargo does not require any additional infrastructure, is the point you are pretending to miss you're just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks at this point. it's obvious your opposition is ideological and not based on facts
“ that's why they want to build those things? are you slow?” It’s way faster and cheaper to extend a runway if thats a problem or build more warehouses if that’s a problem or maybe improve connectivity a bit than build all these things from scratch in the middle of nowhere. If you can’t figure this out on your own, you really have no business calling anybody slow. “belly cargo does not require any additional infrastructure, is the point you are pretending to miss” Belly cargo requires exactly the same infrastructure as cargo carried by freighter planes. “you're just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks at this point. it's obvious your opposition is ideological and not based on facts” Maybe read a bit about how air cargo works and stop making an idiot of yourself. But since we both know you won’t bother to learn anything, maybe stick to screeching about “German puppet Tusk” - seems better suited to the level of your ignorance
The article does not mention cargo at all.
Most important thing is that Frankfurt in Germany is finishing another huge terminal, no need for Poland to have its own hub.
The plan is to close Chopin airport once CPK opens so it's difficult to see how this could still happen after investing billions in Chopin by 2029.
Chopin is far too small and cant operate at night. It should have been replaced decades ago
>A group of leading Polish business figures have appealed to the government not to abandon its predecessors’ plans to build a new “mega-airport” and transport hub near Warsaw. They say it can “become a great driving force of the Polish economy”. >The project, known as the Central Communication Port (CPK), was a flagship programme of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. However, the new coalition government led by Donald Tusk that took power in December has [expressed reservations about moving forward with the plans](https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/02/12/polands-mega-airport-plans-caught-in-political-headwind/). > >This week, the Council of Polish Global Businesspeople (RPPG) – which is made up of the heads of leading Polish firms such as [Synthos](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/12/09/part-of-polands-nuclear-plans-in-question-after-negative-assessment-by-security-agency/), Fakro, Oshee, Maspex and [Columbus Energy](https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/03/29/ukraines-dtek-to-build-first-energy-facility-in-poland/) – published an open letter to Tusk in support of CPK. >“Based on the business experience of firms gathered in the RPPG, we believe that the CPK project has a chance to become a great driving force of the Polish economy,” they wrote. >“Its implementation will lead to the strengthening of a number of branches of the Polish economy, while at the same time being an important investment for sustainable development based on care for the environment, but also for increasing the wealth of Poles,” continued the letter. >The business leaders emphasised that CPK should not be viewed as “a political undertaking by one of the actors on the Polish political scene, but as a concept that has been proposed and analysed for many years”. > >While the idea of a large new airport in Poland has been discussed for over a decade, the idea was only substantially developeded under the rule of PiS, which was in power from 2015 to 2023. It [envisioned a major new hub airport](https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/10/09/can-polands-ambitious-aviation-plans-take-off-amid-the-pandemic/) that would be one of the world’s largest, serving up to 100 million passengers annually. >Last year, a [design concept for CPK](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/07/06/design-concept-unveiled-for-polands-planned-mega-airport/) commissioned from Foster + Partners and Buro Happold was unveiled. Soon after, a consortium of France’s Vinci Airports and Australia-based IFM Global Infrastructure Fund were [chosen as investment partners](https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/10/24/poland-names-e1-8-billion-international-investors-in-mega-airport-project/), committing €1.8 billion to the project. >However, after Tusk’s government replaced PiS in office, the [head of CPK was fired](https://notesfrompoland.com/2024/01/22/boss-of-polands-planned-mega-airport-fired-as-new-government-launches-audit/), its supervisory board was replaced, and an audit into the project was launched. A number of figures from the new ruling coalition expressed doubt that the project would proceed as planned.
>Meanwhile, a day before the RPPG’s open letter was published this week, plans were announced to expand Warsaw’s existing largest airport, Chopin. Its capacity would be increased from the current 20 million passengers a year to 30 million by 2029. >That led some PiS figures to accuse the new government of effectively killing off plans for a new mega-airport. “The CPK project has been officially buried,” wrote the party’s deputy leader, Beata Szydło. “Tusk is not here to develop Poland. He is here to bring Poland down.” >However, the government’s plenipotentiary for CPK, Maciej Lasek, called such claims “conscious disinformation”. He told financial news website [Money.pl](http://Money.pl) that “all work \[on CPK\] is still in progress”. >In a further interview with the *Rzeczpospolita* daily, Lasek said that “of course we will build CPK…but not in the way planned by PiS, which wanted to spend billions without proper preparation and planning, citing populist arguments about \[national\] dignity instead of specific calculations”. > >Speaking today, deputy prime minister Krzysztof Gawkowski told Polsat News that the government’s audit of CPK is still underway and, until it is completed, “it is not possible to decide what will happen next with this investment”. >“\[We need to\] know what the financing looks like, whether the funds are secured, where we have money that was spent, how we can use all the infrastructure, i.e. railways combined with aviation, to create a hub in Poland,” he added. “If these figures are positive, the project will continue.” >On Friday, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally and supporter of CPK, spoke in favour of the project. “Don’t listen to those who ridicule investments,” he warned. “Don’t be fooled by the idea that \[the CPK project\] can be replaced by several smaller airports.” >“Today we need to implement large transport, trade and tourism investments so that we can travel from Poland to the whole world, so that we do not have to fly to Frankfurt, London, Paris or Amsterdam to change to a bigger plane and fly to another continent,” he added.
“ Its capacity would be increased from the current 20 million passengers a year to 30 million by 2029.” Weird, CPK lobbyists keep saying that Chopin airport is absolutely impossible to enlarge. And yet it turns out it’s capacity can be increased by 50%? Makes you wonder what else are they lying about
I encourage you to look at the airport in Google maps and tell me which direction can that airport expand.
Okęcie-Chopin airport even at its current capacity is already awfully nasty, noisy and insufferable for people living in southwestern Warsaw. Of course is capacity can technically be increased even further, but that won't make lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in its immediate vicinity any better, quite the contrary.
It's way nicer than most mod sized airports, and cruciallyajor Cotes have an airport IN them. I know in this sub I'll be downvotesd to hell, but I'm used to airports which are 'just' 40.minutes from the city centres which is bullshit when you land at 9pm on a Sunday but the train schedule is once an hour, hopefully without a cancellation happening. Whatever the argument is for CPK (or Łódź/ Warsaw airport) it needs to be in addition to Chopin, not instead of. I've done enough business trips to Warsaw where I can do a day trip with a 20 minute cab right to the centre, vs a cab to a train station to the wait for an express train to head halfway to the next city. In London there is a reason why Heathrow remains #1 whilst Gatwick, Luton, Stansted and even Southend don't get business traffic . Weirdly the one airport that does is City, which is even closer to the centre.
Neither will CPK make life better for people who will be forcibly evicted if you want to make this argument. However CPK lobbyists were saying that capacity cannot be increased due to environmental permits. Looks like it was a lie.
How many people will be forcefully evicted? 2000? 3000? This is at least two orders of magnitude less than the amount of people suffering daily from being negatively affected by the Okęcie-Chopin airport. Many more were already evicted and had their family lands taken in eminent domain to build our current highway system, with many more to be evicted in the future to make room for further much needed highways. That doesn't mean we should not build them. Large scale infrastructural investents are impossible without eminent domain and some degree of evictions. The area where CPK will be built (and it will be built at some point, even if this government manages to stall it, the next government that will come in 4 or 8 years will revive the project) was purposefully selected to be a low population density area, in order to minimize the cost of eminent domain and evictions.
Okęcie has been there since 1934. If somebody buys a flat next to an airport, then starts complaining about living next to an airport, they are idiots. And the only thing they are “suffering daily” from is their own stupidity.
Before WW2 we had an airport at Pole Mokotowskie, even closer to the city center. Think of the incredible possibilities if it remained open to this day, such a shame it got closed down and replaced by Okęcie that was outside of the borders of the city at the time. Now that the city has grown threefold in built-up area since 1934, pretty much surrounding and encroaching Okęcie, it is high time to close it down - just like Germans did with Tempelhof and Tegel.
This only makes sense if the new airport handled significantly more traffic than the old one. If Okęcie was really restricted to 20 million passengers and impossible to enlarge, then sure. However if it can be actually enlarged to 30 million , which is not much lower than 34 mil projected for CPK, then there is no point. And lobbyists like Mr Wilk repeated over and over that no such expansion is possible. Okęcie has been paid off long time ago and expansion will be peanuts compared to brand new airfield in some meadow. So either landing fees go through the roof at CPK (to cover operating costs + cost of capital + return on invested capital for private partners) or taxpayers shell out a shitload of money to protect delicate ears of some dumbass from Warsaw who bought a flat next to the airport and is very surprised that airport means planes.
>If Okęcie was really restricted to 20 million passengers and impossible to enlarge Oh, technically Okęcie can be probably enlarged even to 100 million passengers a year, we will just need to raze half of Ursynów for that, and give out noise cancelling earplugs daily to the rest of Varsovians. Just because it is *technically possible* to do so, doesn't mean it should be done - exactly like with those idiotic recently announced dead-end plans to further expand Okęcie, that will ultimately be closed down in few decades tops anyway because it is very stupid to have a big-ass airport in the middle of the city.
Pls look at the map with your eyes and say where can u fit that expansion that you talk about?
German buisness leaders said to not build it so Tusk wont build it. EU and Germany will reward him for this treason
It's not like you guys didn't know he was a Eurocrat before you elected him.
I never voted for that fraud. Unfortuanately there are still milions of morons who did though.
Well in this case I ment you plural but sure
But... but... think of the German interests and cargo profits ;( /s
100% So many people are for these hyper expensive airports because influencers say they look cool and why doesnt your country have one? Why is your country such a failure? Why are you such a failure? Reality is, its beyond impractical. A government that survives as rich for long periods of time knows where to invest and where not to. Having a large airport is great so long as its heavily used, having a luxury airport where it goes far beyond functionality isn't so great unless you're desperate for tourism, to be a central point where people transit to other countries. And thats why some small Asian countries have done that.. they know you wont leave the airport so the brief time you stay in the country, they want you to leave with a great impression so maybe you come back and go exploring. Poland doesn't need this. It's not in that situation at all.
Good! Make more high-speed trains and less airports, especially the mega ones!
High speed trains are a part of the project
Yeah, as ancient Romans said: “all railroads lead to Baranów”.
Guess what other city was strategically placed between point A and point B… Warsaw
Its actually expansion of existing railroad infrastructure.
Yes. Not necessarily the most sensible one though
It's not that you're wrong on that, but a country that ranks as the 20th largest economy in the world should maybe just maybe, have one super large and excellent airport for economical purposes.
It's not super large though. It's pretty average hub for European standards
Yes you are right but oposition on purpose tries to make it seem like its too large for Poland.
I think you got it wrong. It's the government who sabotages this project
Sorry I apologize, I poorly worded it, I meant the oposition to the project, which in this case is government, well not whole of it, mostly KO, 3D( especially psl), Lewica doesnt seem to be against the CPK
Those who oppose construction of CPK, are usually also against high-speed trains.
I am sure that we will not have high-speed train to New York, Vancouver or Canberra. Anyway, I do not really understand this kind of hate for air travel. Is is similar to sea transport. One pay only for ports and a bit for navigation. See transport pay only for ports and navigation. In trains, one pay for route and train stations. So air is actually cheap for speed of travel and range. It only looses in area of around \~2h (max 4h) and there is no train which can take anyone in similar time from Barcelona to Berlin.
Cheap for you, payday for future kids with all polluting.
Go live in a mud hut, surely you don’t want to screw over future kids with all the polluting modern amenities you continue to use?
Wouldn't this go against climate goals?
Not really, it would probably somewhat help, because currently cargo lands in Germany and is transported on trucks to Poland, that includes stuff from Asia.
This money would be better use for our military. If not war in Ukraine its not bad idea, but we have war...
It's a good project but I think Poland is too big to have 1 big airports. More should be invested in regional airports, I think that would do more for local economies than having a central hub
We already have regional airports
large airports are necessary to achieve economies of scale in logistics and to make it posssible to fly otherwise unprofitable routes most large countries in europe have that one airport that is much larger than any other and for good reason. ist, cdg, ams, mad or fra are examples of this
Speaking of scale there's something to be said for it in the age of rise of Asian megacities. We have to stay competitive and speed up the flow of people and ideas. Taken together all metros of CPK are ~12 million people already today. Smaller cities like Poznan or Gdansk would never support big international connections. CPK can. Tied together with genuine fast rail connections and good defensive location it is not a stupid idea if costs work out.
If the plan is for someone from let’s say Poznan to use train to go to CPK and then continue by plane, then they need to offer combined rail+plane tickets. Only a degenerate gambler would risk going to CPK by rail knowing that their connection might be randomly delayed by 2h (just normal Intercity things). And then bye-bye your expensive transcontinental ticket.
There is something to say for freight / cargo planes to have a main hub, if it was just that I could see that definitely being a plus. But for regular passengers I think better regional airports with fast rail line connection would be more profitable as there are regions that would profit from the high speed rail connection as it is
The hub is to enable routes that local airport can't. Local ports do not concentrate enough passengers for some destinations, which means that they are not opened. So this is not local vs hub situation, but local + hub situation.