Kraków-Rakowice-Czyżyny Airport is a disused airport in Kraków, Poland, one of the oldest permanent airfields in Europe, open for occasional traffic by certain types of aircraft. A portion of it is now the site of the Polish Aviation Museum with a 720-metre long and 60-metre wide segment of the original concrete runway restored for use by the museum for light planes (to 7,500 kg) and helicopters.

History

The airfield has its beginnings as a military airport established in the borough of Rakowice in 1912, Historia Dzielnicy: Rakowice.
''Source:'' Agnieszka Kruszyńska, Iwona Wendel, ''Dzielnice Krakowa'', Kraków 2001. one of the most modern and largest in Poland at the time. It was built for the needs of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

along with an army garrison. In 1917, the airfield became one of the stopovers in the first European air mail service linking Vienna with Kyiv and

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

. The airport was in continuous use to 1963, until the relocation of the Kraków passenger airport 16 km westwards, to the village of Balice. The expansion of nearby Nowa Huta district of Kraków forced its closure. In June 2004, a portion of the airport contiguous with the Polish Aviation Museum was reopened as a police helicopter base and for an occasional fixed-wing aircraft traffic on runway 26 for an annual two-day air show held on the last weekend of June. The museum is also likely to use this airfield for flying some of its collection or acquiring new exhibits. Since 2009, the airport has been a location of

Live Music Festival Live Music Festival (previously known as Coke Live Music Festival) is a music festival which has been taking place in Kraków, Poland since 2006. The main organizer of the festival is the concert agency Alter Art, and until 2014 the festival's pri ...

References

History of the airport and the Aviation Museum

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Krakow-Rakowice-Czyzyny Airport Defunct airports in Poland Airports in Poland Tourist attractions in Kraków Buildings and structures in Kraków Transport in Kraków