Less than three years after the opening of the almost completely new airport in Radom, the management board of PPL is changing its development strategy. In addition to the key changes regarding the introduction of the hybrid model, the company also announced work on changing the airport's image and new marketing activities.
New strategy and hybrid model
A new strategy for the Warsaw-Radom Airport is based on hybrid modelwhich combines functions passenger services with non-passenger activities – such as cargo, aircraft maintenance or aviation training.
– Thanks to this, Radom is no longer perceived solely through the prism of the number of passengers, but becomes
a place that really responds to the needs of the market, both in terms of infrastructure and human resources development for the entire aviation sector – said Marcin Danił, member of the management board of Polish Airports for finance and trade, presenting a new sales and image strategy and a stabilization plan for the Warsaw-Radom airport.
Image changes
In this document, PPL also devoted a lot of space to communication and image activities planned over the next five years. In Danił's opinion, the airport in Radom has a lot to make up for in terms of its current image.
– We have to show that this is not an empty airport. We will not promote the airport as a building, we will promote specific destinations, he emphasized.
At the same time he announced moving away from mass marketing towards precise digital marketing, focused on the influence zone of Radom and the region. The company wants to reach residents of Radom and potential passengers from the surrounding areas within a radius of approximately 100 km, including: to the residents of Kielce and Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski located in the neighboring Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Puławy in the Lublin region and the southern suburbs of Warsaw.
– This is a market that we want to penetrate and use to make it choose the port in Radom first, not the Chopin airport – said Danił.
PPL emphasizes that in accordance with the new assumptions the airport is to be seen as a practical, “convenient tool for residents, not a monument“Employees (staff, firefighters, controllers), not politicians, become the face of the airport,” Danił emphasized, thus distancing himself from his predecessors and politics.
Charters, low-cost airlines and cargo
The pillars of the new strategy of the Warsaw-Radom airport until 2030 presented by the PPL management board are charters, low-cost airlines and the development of cargo and aircraft maintenance (MRO). The plan assumes striving for profitability and increasing the number of carriers operating from Radom. Polish Airports have officially revised the forecasts for the airport in Radom. The estimated traffic level for 2030 was set at 300,000. passengers – only 10 percent the originally assumed terminal capacity (3 million people).
Currently, charter flights account for 92 percent. all operations. – In addition to charter traffic, which will remain the main traffic of the Radom airport anyway, we would like to encourage low-cost airlines and diversify revenues by adding an MRO element, i.e. aircraft servicing, as well as organizing training – said Danił.
PPL's plans are to reach 150,000 in charters. checked-in passengers per year. – When it comes to low-cost airlines, we would like to start from PLN 50,000. passengers – up to 150 thousand over the next four or five years, he added.
The PPL management board sees opportunities for the airport in Radom regional express air cargo hubfocused on handling courier shipments, e-commerce cargo and highly time-sensitive industrial components.
According to Danił, cargo is a very rapidly growing market segment today. – At Chopin Airport we are achieving an increase of approximately 20%. year to year and we believe that Radom, due to its proximity to Warsaw, has great potential to develop the so-called regional express hub – said a member of the PPL management board.
The Radom Port will also try its hand at developing General Aviation. Although – as Danił admitted – this is not a very profitable industry, bringing spectacular revenues – announced PPL.
The airport in Radom is the only airport in Poland built entirely without support from European Union funds. The city invested PLN 100 million in creating the port.
“Political airport”
In recent years, it has been called by critics a “political airport” or a “monument to politicians”, associated with PiS and the party's MP Marek Suski, who was a great supporter of the project. The very impulse to build a civilian airport came from PiS politicians. The mayor of Radom, representing this group, Andrzej Kolorowniak, made this investment one of the pillars of his city development policy. It was during his presidency that in 2006, the company Port Lotniczy Radom SA was formally established, which dealt with the transformation of the Sadków military airport into a civil-military facility and led to the establishment of the airport in 2014. The manager of the civilian part is PPL, while the owner of the land and the host of the entire facility remains the military side – the 42nd Air Training Base in Radom.
In May 2014, the first flight from Radom took place. The Air Baltic plane includes, among others: with the new mayor of the city, Radosław Witkowski, flew to the capital of Latvia – Riga.
For a short period, it was also possible to travel from Radom to Prague, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Berlin and Lviv. However, the planes flew almost empty, often with only a few people on board. The city did not want to continue paying huge amounts to the so-called “regional promotion” – which concealed subsidies for empty seats on planes. The airport required investment – the original 2,000-meter runway was too short, making the airport technically useless for the large carriers they counted on most.
The last flight took place in October 2017. For almost a year, the airport maintained full operational readiness, even though no scheduled aircraft landed there. It cost taxpayers over PLN 1 million a month.
In September 2018, bankruptcy was announced and the airport was bought by Polish Airports for PLN 12.7 million. A mechanism was then used in which the city committed to repay PPL's investment expenditure. Last year it was PLN 17.8 million, this year PLN 18.2 million was reserved. In total, by 2040, the local government will allocate over PLN 331 million for this purpose. The reconstruction of the airport began in 2019 and was completed in 2023.
In 2025, the airport in Radom handled 95,000 passengers. This year – according to PPL estimates – this number should increase to approximately 120,000. In January, the port served 3,288 passengers, an increase of approx. 3% compared to the same period last year. In total, 17 scheduled passenger flights and 63 other civilian operations were performed.
In the winter season, you can fly from Radom only to Larnaca in Cyprus. Flights operated by Wizz Air take place twice a week – on Tuesdays and Saturdays. With the summer flight schedule, the frequency of flights to Larnaca will increase to three per week. On June 6, PLL LOT flights to Rome will start, on June 8, the national carrier will take passengers to the Greek Preveza, and on June 26, a new Wizz Air connection to the capital of Albania – Tirana will be inaugurated. (PAP)
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