Lublin Airport, provisionally so named as no official name has yet been selected, is an airport currently under construction in Poland and will serve Lublin and the surrounding region. The site is located about 10 km (6.2 miles)east of downtown Lublin, adjacent to the town of Świdnik. The airport will have a 2520 x (45 + 2 x 7,5) m runway, and the terminal facilities will be capable of handling 4 Boeing 737-800 class aircraft simultaneously.[1] Construction began in the fall of 2010 and is planned to conclude before the end of 2012.[2] The new airport will replace the grass airstrip (1200 x 50 m) which served the PZL-Świdnik helicopter factory and was known as Świdnik Airport (code EPSW).
The contract to build the runway was signed in August, 2011, with completion planned by August, 2012.[2] Initially the airfield will have Category I instrument landing system.[2]
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The construction of the Świdnik airfield began in 1935 and it was officially opened on June 4, 1939.[3] It was to serve as a training centre with a pilot school, and was built by the Airborne and Antigas Defence League, a mass organisation propagating aviation among the general public. During World War II, it was used by the Luftwaffe after Poland was occupied in September 1939, and then by the Soviet Air Force once Lublin was captured by the Red Army in July, 1944. The Germans destroyed the airfield's buildings before withdrawing.
In 1949 the Polish government made a decision to build an aviation factory in Świdnik, located next to the airfield.[4] It assembled its first helicopters in 1956, with full scale production beginning in 1957.[5]
The factory employed some staff from the prewar Lubelska Wytwórnia Samolotów, an airplane manufacturer in Lublin that functioned from 1936 to 1939, being itself the successor of Plage i Laśkiewicz factory which functioned between 1920 and 1935. That factory had its own airfield within the Lublin city limits,[6][7] but it was closed and built over after the war. One of the streets running through the area where the airfield used to be is named Lotnicza (Aviation Street).
Lublin Airport is now having its main terminal built.
