Airports as a factor of regional development on the example of the Szymany Airport

The Warmińsko-Mazurskie Voivodship is a NUTS II region, which belongs to the least developed regions of Poland and the EU. One of the reasons of its underdevelopment is poor transport accessibility, which limits the level of competitiveness and investment attractiveness. For this reason the voivodship authorities made a decision to build a regional airport by modernising the military airport in Szymany near Szczytno. The investment, which is co-financed by the European Funds, is aimed to reduce the level of peripherality of the region, increase its competitiveness and, as a consequence, raise the socio-economic development level