Gdansk airport

...you to use to describe Gdansk airport. I spent 4 hours there the other week and was saved from a slow and painful death only by the mini-library of books I’d luckily stashed in my hand luggage.

If you arrive in Gdansk on a beautifully clear day, and gaze out of the window as you begin your ascent, don’t be alarmed if the first thing you see is a sign saying “Danzig” – it’s the German name for the city and a reminder of when borders ...
...transport links. Busses run to Gdansk central station (about 30 mins because, though not a long trip, they stop every few minutes along the way) and cost less than 1 GBP per person. There’s lots of car parking and a few car hire places there if you’re doing a fly-drive, or you can pick up a taxi which will whisk you off to the center for a couple of pounds including tip.

Another good point is that it’s an easy airport to find your ... more

Large. Airy. Well-organized. Modern. They’re all good words, but unfortunately none of them would be appropriate for you to use to describe Gdansk airport. I spent 4 hours there the other week and was saved from a slow and painful death only by the mini-library of books I’d luckily stashed in my hand luggage.

If you arrive in Gdansk on a beautifully clear day, and gaze out of the window as you begin your ascent, don’t be alarmed if the first thing you see is a sign saying “Danzig” – it’s the German name for the city and a reminder of when borders were in different places and a lot of what is now Poland, erm, wasn’t. Despite being a teeny tiny airport they still make your plane “park” a long way away, and you and the other passengers wait for one of those busses to shuttle you over to the airport building.

Now inside. Let’s start with the good stuff. For such a small airport (think little shack in big field and you won’t be far off), it has good transport links. Busses run to Gdansk central station (about 30 mins because, though not a long trip, they stop every few minutes along the way) and cost less than 1 GBP per person. There’s lots of car parking and a few car hire places there if you’re doing a fly-drive, or you can pick up a taxi which will whisk you off to the center for a couple of pounds including tip.

Another good point is that it’s an easy airport to find your way around – probably because it’s so small. Check in is on the ground floor along with currency exchange and a tourist information stand. Upstairs you’ll find all the amenities (more later) and passport control. Signs are in Polish and English, but you’ll not need them – standing at the top of the escalator you can see at a glance everything the airport has to offer.

On a good day there are 13 flights leaving from Gdansk, though this number is reduced at weekends. You can choose to fly to Hamburg (one flight a day) or Frankfurt (ditto). Or you could choose Stockholm (3 flights each day!) or Warsaw (an amazing 8). That’s it. No wonder they think they can get away with such a small place. There are 5 check in desks which are used for all these flights, but they’re not all that organized. I arrived and wanted to check in only to be told they had no storage facilities for my luggage, so I couldn’t do so until 1.5 hours before departure – they schedule flights so only one needs to be checked in at a time. When I returned at my designated time a queue was forming, and when they announced on the tannoy that we could now check in, it seemed unlikely as only the business class desk was manned. Not letting this put me off, I marched up to it and handed over my passport with an “I’ve been waiting for hours. Don’t you dare make me wait for another staff member to arrive” look. It worked, and seconds later I was checked in. Since no other employees had turned up yet, others followed my lead, leaving the business class passengers rather perturbed that all the “common” travelers were stealing their benefits. I know because they were all American and very loud, so eavesdropping was not a problem.

Back upstairs I explored what the airport had to offer. The answer? Not much. There were 3 shops selling newspapers, amber jewelry and random bits and pieces at slightly-inflated-for-Poland-but-still-nowhere-near-westernized prices. There was also a bar which was unmanned the entire time I was there, and a dodgy looking waiter-service restaurant. I flicked through the menu but, having no desire for ketchup (2p), a ham sandwich (1.50 GBP) or a T-bone steak (a bit more), didn’t stay to try it out. In this open area there were also toilets (nice and clean, and most importantly the only free of charge loos I found in the whole 6 days I was there) and a large window which they somewhat over-enthusiastically marketed as a viewing platform.

Bored with this, I progressed through passport control and immigration (another advantage of Poland? Passport stamps!) and found myself in the international departure area. It looked promising, with another bar, 3 shops and lots of chairs, but it was completely deserted apart from a lone employee arranging a few bottles of Vodka on a table. A quick word with her and I discovered that they like to have as few staff as possible at the airport, and the ones who would be opening the shops were still in the domestic departure area serving the guests there. As soon as the Warsaw flight boarded they made their way across the path to us, but by then it was only 50 mins before take off and there were lots of people wanting to buy things. Once opened I saw the shops were a bit on the small side, but well enough stocked. I debated long and hard whether to buy duty free cigarettes (200 for less than 10 GBP) and flog them for a profit back home, but my morals took over and I remembered that no money in the world is worth encouraging that nasty habit.

All this time the bar was still not stocked, and quite worryingly people had simply started helping themselves to the bottles in the fridge behind the counter. Some would tell Vodka girl what they’d taken and promise to come back and pay when the bartender arrived, but most didn’t bother.

In this area there were more loos, but only one for women which was also the unisex disabled one and came with enough room to navigate 30 wheelchairs simultaneously. These, and in fact all of the airport, were clean enough. I would imagine it’d take a large effort to get the place into a state though given the low number of passengers who pass through it on a daily basis. The building is probably newer than most of the airports I fly from, but you couldn’t tell. It was my first experience of an eastern airport but I imagine it was typical – grey and dreary with too much “mass produced” and not enough “attention to detail”. It also struck me that when the flights increase (as the natives thing is bound to happen with their entry into the EU), this place won’t cope – there’s no obvious place for them to expand into, and no room for more facilities in their existing building.

There were a couple of TV monitors in this area but they were switched off while I was there. Not really a problem though since you couldn’t get lost, knew your gate from you boarding pass and were alerted by tannoy (excellent Polish, passable English and terrible German) when it was time to board.

When we had arrived it had taken a while to get through because of the slow staff at the immigration desks, but once checked it was only a stone’s throw to the luggage reclaim belts and then barely 10m to the arrivals area. Small? Mais oui. Sweet? Erm, no.

Final thoughts?

They’ve a long way to go to get this up to western standards, but taking it for what it is – a small, infrequently used airport in an Eastern bloc country – it’s not all that bad. Maybe I’m spoilt by having most of my trips involve the wonderfully facilitated place that is Manchester Ringway, but this place really didn’t impress me. It can have an average though because, though I’ve never seen them, I’m sure there must be worse.

Foot Note: Why fly?

Yesterday alone I flew twice. The friends we visited in Poland have never flown in their lives. They came to stay with us in England, but it took them a 28 hour bus ride to do so. A potential reason for Gdansk being so small and basic is that they think there’s no real demand for improvements – especially among the locals who barely use it. But I’ve traveled on Polish trains and busses now, and what I would say is that no matter how bad this place is, enduring it for a couple of hours followed by a short haul flight is always, without a doubt preferable to day or half-day long trips on their public transport.

 

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