Coventry Airport is eagerly anticipating the arrival of the first Wizz Air flight from Poland this week. The inaugural flight from Katowice will arrive at Coventry this Friday, 13 July and will be greeted by a group of Polish children bearing the traditional Polish custom of bread and salt, symbolizing welcome and good hospitality.
Wizz Air will be operating a three times weekly (Wednesday, Friday and Sunday) service to Katowice, the capital of South Poland, using an 180-seater Airbus A320 aircraft. Katowice is the third largest airport in Poland and the fastest growing major airport in the country. It is the ideal gateway to the Silesian Mountains, for skiing and hiking and also to the popular city break destination of Krakow, just an hour”s drive away.
”We are looking forward to receiving our first passengers from Katowice,” said Chris Orphanou, Coventry Airport”s managing director. ”The new services connecting Coventry and Poland have already proved so popular that Wizz Air has brought forward the start date to earlier in July.”
”Coventry and the West Midlands region have strong historical links with Poland and these new flights to Katowice are great news for the Polish community, business and leisure travellers. We are also pleased to be working closely with CV One and Warwickshire County Council who will be distributing literature on the local area to all inbound visitors.”
Coventry Airport dates back to before the Second World War. After a lapse of more than ten years scheduled services were controversially re-introduced by Thomsonfly in March 2004.
In June 2007 the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and Secretary of State for Transport, advised the West Midlands airport of its decision to refuse its application to build a new passenger terminal despite speculation that it would be approved. The current, so called temporary, accommodation is not capable of handling much more than one million passengers a year and annual throughput is running at around 700,000 passengers.