Aviation market in Poland in 2000-2017

The changes that have taken place over the last 3 decades on the market of air services in Europe have had an impact on the markets of individual regions. The paper presents short introduction to the issues of transformation on the European aviation market. The main purpose of this article is to present the development of the aviation market in Poland over the period 2000-2017. The data presented in the article comes from the reports of the Civil Aviation Office in Poland and International Civil Aviation Organization. Aviation market in Poland is becoming more and more popular and its further development is expected in the coming years. There is a great potential for small regional airports that are increasingly operating on the transport services market.


Introduction
Transport plays a crucial role in economy bringing goods and services to customers as well as transporting passengers to work or acting for pleasure purposes [1]. One of the fastest growing modes of transport is air transport. The development of this sector is dictated by the increasing mobility of societies around the world. The fast passenger movement in comfortable conditions for relatively little money is a major factor in the popularity of air transport. At the world's largest airports departures are held even every few tens of seconds. The aviation sector in Europe has undergone various changes over the last 20 years, not only in terms of technology and technical sphere, but especially in the legal one.
From a safety point of view, air transport remains the safest. This can be seen in the statistics published by various organizations dealing with the safety of air transport. Public and private agencies in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere are implementing many substantive changes to air transportation operations [2]. These changes seek to address challenges posed by increasing air traffic, increasing diversity of air traffic (for example due to the emergence of small Unmanned Aerial Systems), aging infrastructure, and ongoing efforts to make air transportation safer and more efficient [2]. As its primary indicator of aggregate safety in the global air transport sector International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) studies the accident rate based on scheduled commercial air traffic with a Maximum Take-off Weight (MTOW) above 2250 kg [3]. The global accident rate (accidents per million departures) over the years 2005-2016 was presented in Figure 1. Aircraft accidents are categorized using the definition provided in Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention-Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation. The total elimination of aviation accidents and serious incidents is a desirable goal, but clearly unachievable [6]. In air transport it is very easy to make a mistake. The improvement in safety during flight has led to increased attention to on-ground risks in the industry -hazards that occur before take-off and after landing -as the quest for improving commercial aviation continues. Risks that may occur involving the safety of the crew operating the aircraft, apply to the management of flight organization. The process of safe flight focuses on a human work and systems but also contain events which include the risk of mistake at the same time resulting in an accident. The idea of risk-free systems has evolved in recent years towards a perspective centred around safety management, aimed at supporting resource allocation processes in which a balance between "production" and "protection" is attained [6]. In this context, [7] defines safety as the state in which the risk of harm to persons or property damage is reduced to, and maintained at or below, an acceptable level through a continuing process of hazard identification and risk management. Aviation safety management is articulated according to different levels and affects both the aviation service providers (airlines, airport operators, etc.) and the regulators of aeronautical services [6]. This point of view is supported by ICAO through the regulatory framework of Safety Management Systems (SMS) [6]. More information on various aspects of air transport safety can be found in the following literature [8][9][10][11][12].

Transformations on the European market
In recent years, the European aviation sector has gone through drastic change on both the supply and the demand side [13]. Airports are two-sided markets that bring together (and make revenue from) airlines on one side and passengers on the other [14]. As a result, the extent of airport market power depends on the ability and willingness of airlines and passengers to switch to other airports, and this particular feature complicates the standard competitive assessment since the joint constraints on the airport coming from both sides of the market need to be assessed [15]. Legal and institutional aspects have clearly affected the structure of the market, while cultural forces have influenced leisure mobility over space and its characteristics [13]. On the supply side, only a few industries have faced changes as deep as those that have occurred in the airline industry in the past two decades [13].
We also observe important changes on the demand side. In general, the process of internationalization and globalization has increased the mobility not only of goods but also of people [13]. Trade agreements and the expansion of cargo transport have contributed to an increase in -or are related to -the high mobility of business travellers [16,17]. Travelers nowadays tend to prefer multiple and short holidays as opposed to traditional long stays, while also the loss of the glamor associated with flying -and hence the supply of lower service levels -is accepted by many travellers [18,19]. These changes bring benefits in the form of a larger number of operations and therefore higher profits, but they are not without some problems. Market factors, such as demand fluctuations, consumer heterogeneity, and uncertainty about the travellers' departure date or even destination, combined with a limited aircraft capacity and the very perishable nature of the product (the unsold seats cannot be used as soon as a flight departs), make the setting of airfares and the allocation of aircraft seats a complex decision process [13]. In recent years, carriers have adopted a set of techniques to allocate limited and highly perishable resources among differentiated consumers [13]. These techniques are known as 'yield management' (or 'revenue management') [20,21]. Although these issues are particularly important in aviation, similar problems also occur in other transport sectors (a.g. postal services [22,23]. The liberalisation and extension of the European aviation market stand out as one of the clearest success stories of the single European market. During the 1990s three phases were used in order to fully deregulate the European airline industry and, by 1997, airlines that belonged to member states of the European Union were allowed to fly freely within the boundaries of the single market [24]. For Europe, Pitelis and Schnell [25] have shown with their survey that European airline managers perceived substantial barriers of entry as late as 1998 (so after the full deregulation). However, since then there have been further deregulation and also some substantial developments of the aviation industry, which may have changed the contestability of this market. New airline business models have developed, while airports have become more commercially focused and are often privately owned or run at arms-length from government [26]. Furthermore, the Schengen Convention has ensured free movement of people in Europe. The European Commission amended several key regulations, for example those related to slot allocation, competition and computer reservation systems (CRSs) [24]. Furthermore the number of member states of the European Union has increased to currently 27 states, which has widened the market but also increased the number of competing players on many routes [24].
Currently, the three largest airlines in the European market are: Lufthansa, International Airlines Group (formerly British Airways), and Air France / KLM, with significant market share (especially on long-distance routes).

The development of the aviation market in Poland
In Poland over 2 decades there have been significant changes in the aviation sector. Firstly, there were changes in the number of transport companies associated with the liberalization of the air services market. Another issue is the development of regional airports. Some of the airports ceased to exist (e.g. Szczytno) for the development of new ones (e.g. Modlin, Lublin, Radom) (this tendency can be seen in Table 1 and 2). There are currently 15 functioning civil airports in Poland. Supplementing the data in Table 1 and 2, the locations of currently existing airports in Poland are presented in Figure 2. Finally, there is also a huge increase in passenger service in this transport sector. The situation described is confirmed by aviation market data presented in Figure 3.    Analysing the data presented in Figure 3, it can be concluded that since 2003 there has been a systematic increase in passenger service at Polish airports. On the other hand, an increase in PAX operations is visible throughout the entire period. In 2017, nearly 40 million passengers were served at Polish airports (39,972,294). Most passenger check-in (15,730,330) and PAX operations (157,044) were made at the largest airport in Poland -Chopin airport in Warsaw.
The answer to the increase in the demand for passenger traffic is the construction of further airports in Poland (e.g. Lublin-Świdnik Airport). Existing airports are also subject to constant modernization and expansion to accommodate more and more passengers. Figure  4 shows the number of passengers served on the three youngest airports in Poland from 2012 to 2017.

Fig. 3. Number of passengers on the three youngest airports in Poland
Many factors influence the success of the airport. Among these factors, we can list the location in a relatively large population cluster at larger urban agglomerations [28]. Another is the macro-economic situation of the region in which the airport is located. The age structure of society and the expectations of the population of the region in relation to mobility. The attractiveness of connections offered by carriers and competitive ticket prices.
Based on the data presented (Fig. 4), it can be concluded that the Lublin-Świdnik airport is experiencing quite stable increases in the number of passengers served. The worst in this list is the airport in Radom, which has small increments and number of passengers served. The Lublin-Świdnik airport is located in a region with a relatively large number of inhabitants, and the main city of the Lublin region is a student city with a rich history, often visited by tourists. These factors affect the popularity of air transport, which is reflected in the data presented [29].

Conclusions
The changes that have taken place over the last 3 decades on the market of air services in Europe have had an impact on the markets of individual regions. In Poland, a lot of political changes took place at that time, also affecting the country's economic system. In addition, changes in the transport sector in the early 1990s contributed to the development of population mobility. The geo-political stability of the region is also a factor that is conducive to the increasing mobility of the society [30].
These factors in turn have influenced the development of air transport in Poland over the last 20 years. The largest airports in Poland recorded an increase in the number of passengers checked in and this trend remains unchanged. There has also been development in smaller airports and new ones have emerged, where Lublin-Świdnik airport are dealing better and better on the market. The data presented in the paper show that air transport in Poland is becoming more and more popular and its further development is expected in the coming years. Small and medium regional airports become important for the whole aviation market.