Hill consortium takes airport delivery role in Poland

Hill International will lead the consortium appointed to act as general contract engineer for Poland’s new airport, taking on a programme-management role that sits close to the centre of the country’s most ambitious transport investment. The winning team, which also includes Egis Poland, was selected by Centralny Port Komunikacyjny under the Port Polska programme, with the bid valued at PLN 1.585bn.

The appointment is not a conventional contractor award, but it is one of the most consequential packages in the delivery structure. The general contract engineer will support planning and scheduling, integrate contracts and construction works, and help steer the airport through the path from design and procurement into commissioning. It will also coordinate with the future ORAT consultant, bringing operational-readiness planning into the delivery picture earlier, and take part in BREEAM-related certification activity for the airport’s facilities and infrastructure.

That combination of functions is what gives the role its weight. On large aviation schemes, the most difficult part is rarely the existence of a major civils package in isolation. It is the management of multiple packages, technical systems, interfaces, approvals, and operational requirements moving on different clocks. By appointing a general contract engineer at this stage, the client is putting a formal structure around those interfaces before the programme reaches its most demanding procurement and build phases.

The scale of the wider project explains the emphasis on experience. The procurement required evidence of at least one major airport project management contract within the last 15 years, connected either to a new airport or a major expansion, with capacity of at least 20 million passengers annually and a contract value of at least €2bn net. That threshold effectively pushed the competition into the hands of global programme-management teams with experience in aviation delivery at metropolitan scale rather than conventional local project support.

The airport itself is planned to open in 2032 between Warsaw and Łódź, with initial capacity of between 34 and 44 million passengers a year and longer-term expansion intended to follow demand. Crucially, it is being framed not as a standalone terminal-led development but as part of a broader transport system integrating air, rail, and road. That widens the delivery challenge. Airports on this scale are already system-heavy projects; when they are knitted into national rail and surface-access programmes, the pressure on interface management, phasing, and data control grows quickly.

That is why the appointment will be watched well beyond Poland. Across Europe, major transport programmes are putting more emphasis on delivery governance, environmental accreditation, and commissioning readiness earlier in the programme cycle. The technical challenge is no longer limited to getting concrete poured and steel erected on time. It is about whether operational systems, certification pathways, passenger readiness, and multi-package sequencing can all be managed within the same programme discipline. The engineer role awarded here is designed to do exactly that.

For consultants, contractors, and specialist suppliers, the selection also starts to define how the next wave of packages may be run. A strong central programme-management layer tends to shape reporting standards, quality expectations, package interfaces, and the extent to which late change is tolerated. That can be uncomfortable for parts of the supply chain, but it usually reflects a client trying to prevent major project complexity from becoming major project drift. Poland’s new airport still has years of delivery ahead of it, and many larger construction packages remain to come, but this appointment is a clear indication that the client is now moving beyond concept and into controlled execution. On projects of this scale, that transition is often where the real build programme begins.