Biała Podlaska Airport

Biała Podlaska Airport is a former military airport, located near the town of Biała Podlaska, in the north of Lublin Voivodship. It is under modernisation to serve as a cargo airport and, in the future, to probably also serve passenger services in this area completely deprived of airports. The company „Port Lotniczy Biała Podlaska” tried to revive the airport, but currently the airport manager changed.

The Biała Podlaska airport is the only one in the eastern part of Poland area with the potential to serve passenger services and should. Its infrastructure is: 2 runways of 3300 x 60 meters the larger one and the smaller of 2260 x 30 meters, with taxiways and aprons, what seems to allow to handle even intercontinental flights. It is possible for the airport to cover the nearby western Belarus and attract passengers also from this area. The airport is situated nearly at the border with the Republic of Belarus (10,3 million people), where, due to the duopolies on the market, there are no low cost airline’s services, and quantity of air travels per person per year is unbelievably low due to the monopoly of its national airlines. Airport in Biała Podlaska is located in direct proximity to the Belarusian city of Brest. There is a boarder crossing with Belarus in nearby Terespol/Brest (approx. 10 km distance to the east).

Table. Border traffic with Brest in the year 2003.

Border crossing

Quantity of passeners traversing the border crossing in 2003

(both sides)

Terespol - rail

934.822

Terespol - road

2.379.446

Source: www.bialapodlaska.uc.gov.pl

In proximity of 70 kilometers there is a precious complex of Białowieża Primaeval Forest, known as Belaveskaya Pushcha (Белавеская пушча) in Belarus and Puszcza Białowieska in Poland. This is an ancient virginal forest straddling the border between Belarus and Poland, located 70 km north of Brest. It is the only remaining part of the once immense forest spreading across the European Plains and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

History
The airport is a former military base.

Airport infrastructure
The post-military airport ranks in top five airports in Poland in terms of its infrastructure length.

There exists a railroad spur next to the terminal that can be used for passenger service.