Katowice-Muchowiec Airport

Ogólne informacje

Katowice-Muchowiec Airport is a general aviation airport in the Muchowiec neighbourhood of Katowice, Poland.It has one inoperative concrete runway, RWY 05/23 with the dimensions of 1109x. There is a displaced threshold length of 221m on both RWY 05 and RWY 23, yielding a landing distance of 888m. However, coal-mining activity damaged the runway and it is no longer used. The parallel 770-metre grass RWY 05/23 is also closed per NOTAM until the end of 2007. This leaves the 655-metre grass RWY 07/25 as the sole working runway.HistoryThe airport was built in the 1920s, and was used for civil aviation including scheduled passenger traffic, starting in 1926 with service to Warsaw, later also to Cracow, Wien via Bruenn. Ground damage due to coal-mining activity eliminated the passenger traffic, and now only the sport use remains with infrequent general aviation arrivals and departures.On the other hand, because of the long commute from the city centre to the 30 km-distant Katowice International Airport, it has been proposed to the Katowice government in 2005 that a city airport be built at Katowice-Muchowiec Airport, offloading Katowice International for general aviation as well as some smaller scheduled traffic, serving primarily the business community and STOL aircraft.Modernisation proposalsKatowice intended to transform its inner-city airport into a proper City-Airport that would serve this densely populated coal basin. However, only smaller aircraft could use it, and it would serve rather domestic and business traffic.