Krakow Airport (KRK)

...of strong Jewish connections of Krakow as well as proximity of Auschwitz).

In the British Isles, apart from London, you can fly to Krakow from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Dublin.

The number of passengers serviced by Balice has doubled between 2004 and 2005, with half of them being now carried by low-cost airlines (Ryanair, easyJet and SkyEurope are the ones that serve the British ...
.../> You can fly to Krakow for pretty much the cost of the taxes/charges with Ryanair (plus, of course, the price of getting to the airport in the UK and/or parking there).



**Transport links**

As we have been driven to the airport by a kind family member from Bielsko-Biala, I didn't have a chance to test the public transport connections to the city of Krakow, but the airport website informed me that ... more

This was the first time I used any Polish airport other than Warsaw or Gdansk in the last few years (in fact since I flew from Katowice 26 years ago at the age of 9, which doesn't somehow bring any reliable memories).

I have to say that however much I like the almost eerie emptiness and the plush mother and baby room at Gdansk airport, Krakow-Balice, although nothing special, seemed to be one of the nicer small airports I had a chance to use.

**Connections**

I was surprised by the number of airlines, flights and destinations that operate from there. Germany, Italy and the UK are covered very well, and there are also flights to main towns in other European countries as well as intercontinental ones to New York and Chicago (large centre for a Polish community in the US) as well as TelAviv (presumably because of strong Jewish connections of Krakow as well as proximity of Auschwitz).

In the British Isles, apart from London, you can fly to Krakow from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Dublin.

The number of passengers serviced by Balice has doubled between 2004 and 2005, with half of them being now carried by low-cost airlines (Ryanair, easyJet and SkyEurope are the ones that serve the British Isles) and London having the largest number of connections aof all destinations! It takes 2.5 hours to reach London, about 3 to Edinburgh and Dublin.

You can fly to Krakow for pretty much the cost of the taxes/charges with Ryanair (plus, of course, the price of getting to the airport in the UK and/or parking there).

**Transport links**

As we have been driven to the airport by a kind family member from Bielsko-Biala, I didn't have a chance to test the public transport connections to the city of Krakow, but the airport website informed me that there is two buses that serve Balice, taking about 40 minutes to get there and costing an equivalent of 50 pence per passenger (plus any large bags); alternative is a taxi for about a tenner.

The airport is located pretty much on the A4 motorway (Katowice-Krakow, toll about 2 GBP) and can be reached in about an hour from Katowice or less than 2 hours from Bielsko-Biala. Parking seems spacious enough, and there are drop-off spaces (15 minutes allowed) just opposite the terminal building. Luggage trolleys do not require a coin.

Its location makes it handy for (apart from Karkow itself and its environs), the Polish ranges of Carpathian mountains (including Tatras an Pieniny).

**Check in, Security and the like **

There is several check in desks, which seemed to cope well enough at the time of our departure (evening on Wednesday), but then after experiencing Stansted's pack-them-tight-move-them-cheap low cost airlines, one would need a long queue indeed to be surprised.

The security check was a standard one nowadays (hand luggage being scanned and the passenger itself walking through a metal-detector gate). Considering the fact that both me and my husband were wearing steel-capped boots and decided (and were advised) to take them off for the easiest passage we must have looked a funny couple there standing in our socks and waiting for everything else to go through. But I liked the fact that instead of frisking people, the security staff waited patiently for passengers to remove suspect pieces of clothing or gear and walk back through the metal detector gate.

I don't have a very firm memory of the boarding gate, to be honest, I know we squeezed through the scrum using our little one and waving about a boarding card marked 'child' as mark of our entitlement to go first. They use buses to get passengers to the planes and these are just like any other airport buses - plenty of standing space, not much to hold on.

**Facilities**

As in many if not all small airports, the majority of facilities is located before the passport and security control, while the airside has a minimum of them. I don't particularly like it, as I prefer to go through all the official stuff before I sit down to coffees, books or staring at walls; but it obviously only makes sense to duplicate facilities (or even have the airside ones larger) in grand airports with a lot of non-EU flights that are still eligible for duty free, and plenty of transit passengers.

Thus, majority of facilities in Balice are located before passport control and from what we experienced this one evening the seemed adequate if not particularly grand.

There is pretty much everything you would expect of an airport: car hire, banks, cash point, travel agents and a post office (though with limited opening hours); plus the usual set of catering and shopping establishments. Most of the latter are located at mezzanine level, where a newsagent and a couple of gift shops can be found, as well as a café and a restaurant.

Our flight was delayed (apparently due to the Horrible French again) so instead of a quick rush-in which we expected, we actually had about an hour to kill. We spend it sitting by a fish tank (Katie's choice) in the upstairs café, drinking very reasonably priced tea and mineral water and browsing around the few small shops there. As I said, the drinks seemed priced very reasonably for an airport (or maybe it was just my feeling after prices in both Gdansk and Warsaw) and when I had a peek at the restaurant menu, the selection and prices seemed OK (if not exactly cheap).

The newsagent had a very good choice of Polish reading matter as well as quite a few papers in English, German and few other languages. The first of small shops that were opened stocked an usual array of tatty souvenirs (with quite a lot of space devoted to Polish national and Krakow clubs' football replica shirts and scarves); while the second had an acceptable array of art and craft goodies, including pretty painted wooden Easter Eggs and copies of old prints of Krakow.

There is a duty free Baltona shop on the airside, we have not bought anything there but it contained the usual selection of fags, booze, sweets and sausage that can be expected in any Polish duty-free.

Shopping is not a strong point of Krakow airport, but there is minimum there.

Apart from the above, the mezzanine level houses a viewing terrace (sadly closed when we were there as only opened during daylight hours, there is a 50p charge), a chapel in which a mass is celebrated every Sunday (fittingly for an airport named after the pope John Paul 2nd and located in one of the most religiously traditional parts of Poland) as well as a spacious if somewhat plastickly furnished mother and baby room (I have a thing about facilities for mothers with babies even though I am not in possession of a baby now). There is also a small play area for toddlers/small children, containing an rocking crocodile and a Wendy house.

I cannot comment on the baggage handling times as we only took the return flight from Krakow; the turnaround of our plane seemed very efficient, I think it took less then half an hour between it landed and we were boarded and ready to fly (but obviously they would try hard with that one as it was delayed on arrival).

All in all, nothing special but a perfectly adequate airport with reasonably priced shops and catering and staff more friendly than at least few other airports I used. 

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