Departure
99%
vs 95% ▲ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport is a busy international gateway serving the Tricity conurbation of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia on Poland's Baltic coast, and is the third-busiest airport in the country by passenger numbers. For the visiting VFR or IFR pilot it offers a single long, ILS-equipped hard runway, full air traffic control services and a history stretching back to the earliest days of Polish civil aviation.
Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport (ICAO EPGD, IATA GDN) is the principal airport for the Tricity metropolitan area of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia in Pomeranian Voivodeship, northern Poland. Named since 2004 after the former Polish president and Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa, it is operated by Port Lotniczy Gdańsk Spółka z.o.o. and ranks as the largest airport in northern Poland. For a simulator pilot it is a good example of a modern, fully controlled regional international airport with CAT IIIb precision approach capability, sitting close to the Baltic coastline and the historic city of Gdańsk.
The airport lies about 12 km northwest of Gdańsk city centre, roughly 10 km from Sopot and 23 km from Gdynia, in the Matarnia district near the former village of Rębiechowo. It is a controlled aerodrome with its own approach and tower services (Gdańsk Approach and Gdańsk Tower), reflecting its status as a major international airport serving the whole Tricity conurbation.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 11/29, orientated northwest-southeast. It is a hard-surfaced (asphalt/concrete) runway roughly 9,137 feet long, lit for night operations, with an instrument landing system serving runway 29. Field elevation is 469 feet.
Pilots should expect to work Gdańsk Approach (Gdańsk APP) on 127.275 MHz, with airport information available on the ATIS frequency 129.625 MHz, and Gdańsk Tower (Gdańsk TWR) on 118.1 MHz for the runway and circuit environment. Runway 29 is served by an ILS, described elsewhere as a CAT IIIb system permitting landings in low-visibility fog conditions, with a decision height around 30 m (98 ft) and visibility minima between 125 m and 300 m depending on the point along the runway.
As a controlled international aerodrome with full approach and tower services, arriving and departing traffic is handled under radar and procedural control via Gdańsk Approach and Tower rather than through an informal visual circuit; pilots should expect to receive routing and sequencing instructions appropriate to a busy commercial airfield.
Gdańsk's first passenger flights began in 1919 from an airfield in the Langfuhr district of the then Free City of Danzig, now the Wrzeszcz district of Gdańsk, a former military site converted to civilian use and also employed for airmail and police flying. The airport grew steadily, gaining scheduled services to Warsaw, Berlin, Moscow, Königsberg and other regional cities, and in September 1922 hosted the first Polish domestic route, flown by Aerolloyd between Gdańsk, Warsaw and Lviv using Junkers F.13 aircraft; Aerolloyd's operations were the forerunner of what later became LOT Polish Airlines. By the late 1960s the Wrzeszcz airport's infrastructure, including its runway lighting, had become outdated, forcing a ban on overnight flights, and growing urban development around the site prompted the decision to build a new airport near the village of Rębiechowo. The old Wrzeszcz airport closed on 1 May 1974, with a housing estate later built over the site; remnants of its former north-south runway can still be found today in the Zaspa district. The new Rębiechowo airport opened in 1974 on land incorporated into Gdańsk's Matarnia borough in 1973. The airport took its present name in 2004 in honour of Lech Wałęsa, former President of Poland, a choice that generated some debate over rendering his name with or without Polish diacritics for international audiences. Passenger numbers passed one million for the first time in 2006 and two million in 2010, and a new passenger terminal opened in April 2012 ahead of the UEFA Euro 2012 championships.
Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport is today a major international airport, the third-busiest in Poland behind Warsaw Chopin and Kraków John Paul II, and the largest airport in the north of the country, handling scheduled, charter and cargo traffic from numerous airlines. Its single runway is equipped with LED lighting for both runway and taxiways, controllable remotely from the tower, along with a wide area multilateration system supplementing conventional navigation aids. Non-scheduled operators need prior approval for landing and parking from the airport's Operations Department, which must be requested well in advance of arrival, so pilots planning an unscheduled visit should be aware that prior permission is required.
