CPK with a green light? Tusk may announce it any moment

On June 5, Donald Tusk will announce support for the construction of the Central Communication Port – “Puls Biznesu” has learned. At the same time, media reports about the extension of work on the investment are expected to be confirmed. The PiS government has consistently announced that the CPK will be put into operation in 2028 and will be expanded in the following years. There was no indication that this date could be maintained, even during the period when PiS did not have to consult anyone on its decisions. In the current circumstances, a new date must be set for when the first planes can start taking off from the airport. As determined by “PB”, the government will indicate the interval between 2032 and 2035.

CPK. Questionable railway spokes

Currently, the greatest doubts concern the “spokes”, i.e. railway connections from various regions of Poland that will transport passengers directly to the airport. As “PB” points out, the High-Speed ​​Railway between Warsaw, CPK, Łódź, Poznań and Wrocław is not at risk.

– The CPK company was preparing the construction of 10 so-called spokes leading from various regions of Poland to Warsaw and the new airport. Recently, there have been clear announcements that this system needs to be rethought, and I agree with that, because I think that the spokes were excessively centralized. Not everything has to go through the airport. I believe this is a valid criticism, says Dominik Sipiński, transport and infrastructure analyst at the Polityka Insight and ch-aviation analytical center, recently in an interview with “Wprost”.

Tusk's green light will please Law and Justice politicians, especially those who have been involved in the design of the CPK from the beginning. They include former government plenipotentiary for CPK, Marcin Horała. He has long argued that Poland needs a new airport, because neither the expansion of Chopin Airport nor the creation of a duoport involving the airports in Modlin or Radom will bring the desired result.

He adds that Chopin airport is already completely full.

– It (Chopin – ed.) can be expanded, but it makes no sense due to environmental decisions and the fact that it is surrounded by Warsaw. The engineering costs of a significant expansion of Okęcie would be staggering, much higher than building an airport from scratch in the middle of nowhere. The CPK project is so advanced that if it were not for the obstruction of the new authorities, it would have already received a building permit, but the investment process of expanding Okęcie has not even started. And all these stages of planning, design and obtaining consents still need to be completed. We will spend billions of zlotys on the expansion of Okęcie, which will be enough for 10, 15 years, and then we will have to build a new airport anyway, but we will be 15 years behind the times – argued Horała in a conversation with Eliza Olczyk.