The administration of the Olsztyn-Mazury airport (Szymany) and the leadership of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship of Poland are holding talks with all interested parties on launching new flights to the airport. Charter flights may be launched from Ukraine to the Polish airport. This was announced by Marcin Kuczynski, the deputy governor of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, which owns the airport, the CFTS reports.
Kuczynski recently traveled to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian tour operators, which resulted in an agreement on possible launch of flights.
"We have established contacts with a local (Ukrainian) tour operator. We have reached an agreement that provides for launching flights from Szymany to Lviv and Kyiv," Kuczynski said in an interview with the Gazetą Wyborczą.
The Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship is located in the northeast of Poland, near the border of the Kaliningrad region of Russia. The region is famous for its lakes. In Poland, the Voivodeship is often called the lake region. The Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship is the center of ski tourism during the winter.
The Olsztyn-Mazury airport was opened in January 2016 after major reconstruction work. The airport should handle 30,000 passengers in its first year of operation and 80,000 in the second year. The rate of increase of passenger traffic should not fall below 5-7% until the year 2022. The airport’s administration and the leadership of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship are hoping that the annual flow of passengers through the airport will reach 600,000-700,000 by that year.
The volume of passenger traffic through the Olsztyn-Mazury airport was 47,100 in 2016. Five airlines operated flights to the airport, but two of them (Adria Airways and Sprint Air) have suspended flights. Currently, only three carriers operate flights from the airport: Ryanair operates flights to London (Stansted), Wizz Air to London (Luton), and LOT to Warsaw (only in the summer). In addition, Wizz Air will launch flights to the Sandefjord Torp airport (Oslo) in May. The airport’s administration is also interested in launch of new flights to Germany and the Netherlands.
