New Warsaw airport too late for Euros
Reuters - Wednesday 30 May 2012, 17:27
Warsaw's new Modlin airport will
open just in time for next month's Euro 2012 championships
but no airlines will land there until almost two weeks after the
tournament ends in July.
"We are an airport that is still under construction," Modlin
spokeswoman Magdalena Bojarska said on Wednesday. "We are ready
for private planes. Normal flights will start from July. There
will be no airlines until then."
Poles have moaned for years about the shortage of budget
flights to Warsaw, with major carriers like Ryanair and Easyjet
steering clear of the city's main Chopin airport, blaming
overcrowding and high costs per passenger.
Modlin, 20 miles to the north of the city, has long been in
planning to resolve the problem but a series of delays mean the
first budget flights will only land there on July 16.
That should not harm the city's ability to cope with the
additional traffic for the June 8-July 1 tournament but means
there are fewer options for fans looking to travel cheap.
Poland has made huge strides in adapting their
often-outdated infrastructure for a tournament that will bring
more than a million visitors to the country and co-hosts
Ukraine.
Almost 1,000 kilometres of new motorway have been
constructed for the tournament as well as two new stadiums in
Gdansk and Warsaw while wide-ranging improvements in rail and
hotel infrastructure have also been made.