KRK: Krakow Balice Airport (Poland)

[ruinair]

Krakow airport lies about 15 km from Krakow city. You can take a bus (slow) or train (best) to the city.

The airport is also known as John Paul II International Airport Kraków-Balice, since the Pope lived here.

Kraków Airport as a facility is used by both military and civil aviation. Annual pax is circa 3 million pax.

The five most popular destinations by pax are: 1 Dublin. 2 Stansted. 3 Gatwick. 4 Munich. 5 Warsaw.

Airlines flying to Krakow include Aer Lingus, Air Berlin, Austrian, BA, Czech, easyJet, EL AL, Finnair, Germanwings, Iberia, Iceland, Jet2, LOT, Lufthansa, Norwegian, Ruinair, Transavia and Wind Jet.


There is one hardened runway, which is 2,550 metres long and 60 metres wide.

http://www.krakowairport.pl/en



Krakow Airport is home to both those high fares airlines and many low fares airlines.
This shot was taken from the outside public viewing gallery which costs PLN 2 to enter!



Inside the terminal the Arrivals and Departures hall can be very busy.
These people have all gathered in the terminal to chat about Ruinairs lowest fares.



Outside the terminal there is always time for a beer in the sun.
On the very right hand side is the start of the taxi rank.



There is a free shuttle bus which runs the 200 metres from the Terminal to the tiny train station ...



... from where the train departs to Krakow city, leaving every 30 minutes.
The fare is PLN 7 if you buy a ticket from a machine, or PLN 8 if you buy it from the conductor.



Once in Krakow you will find one of Europes best city break destinations, with castle and river etc.

[amnesia]

Wow - nice description :-)
Well, Cracov (polish Kraków) used to be the capitol of Poland. Has really huge history hidden in every street and many buildings. City's main square is bussiest in all Poland and also one of most popular in this part of Europe. I remember I used to visit this city almost every month as I was promotor of one party taking it's place there. Those time the city square was always crowded and looked like just after renovation. Sadly the far from this place, the city looks worse. As in almost every city in this part of Europe :-)
About the culture, this city used to be an European capitol of Culture once. There is uncountable parties everywhere and also many interesting gigs. As it used to have strong amount of Jewish people living there, there is huge festival showing their culture taking place every year. There also is "Sacrum Profanum" festival with interesting electronic artists like Kraftwerk last year and Aphex Twin this one!
About the airport, it's tottaly overcrowded. This year it's better as the pax level fallen down rapidly, but the terminal building has riched it's limit few years ago. They are working hard to increase it's cappability and also increase it's pax level. Several months ago local and airport authorities informed about some strong fund and lowering taxes to open new routes and get unless one airline to base it's aircrafts there. Norwegian seems to cut it's routes as they see more potential in Copenhagen. EasyJet is flying with no changes. Wizzair still invests on it's base in Katowice. This way there is only LOT and FR on the block. Seems Cracov is a nearest possibility to be a first base in Middle-eastern part of Europe :-)
About the percentage level of carried paxes, AirNostrum/Iberia and WindJet is flying out from Kraków. I don't remember if the same story is with Transavia. Yesterday news said about some Israeli company (not ElAl) to start it's operation from Tel Aviv.