The concept of an airport city as the basis for the development of airports : the case of Poland

Contemporary airports serve many various functions besides passenger and cargo air transport. They may constitute consumption and investment business centers, thus generating new jobs and additional revenues in the region. Thanks to evoking additional demand, they become catalysts of change, causing a positive domino effect for the socio-economic development of the region. That is why in many places around the world airports function no longer as traditional ports, that is stations devoted exclusively to servicing passenger traffic, but as Airport Cities. For regional authorities, and for the managers of airports, on the one hand, this is an effectual direction for the development of smaller regional airports, but on the other hand, it is extremely capital consuming, therefore initial analyses of competitive strategic potentials of a given airport must be carried out first. The main goal of this article is to present a strategic assessment of the competitiveness of Polish regional airports (PRAs) as the foundation for their development towards the direction of Airport Cities, under current conditions, and against global challenges. The original econometric model which has been created for the purpose of this research, taking into account their regional catchment areas as well as individual effects that are not a variable in time. In addition, other parameters have been included, which describe and characterize the effectiveness of management system of individual PRAs.