There are places in Poland that do not need branding campaigns to attract foreign capital. One of them lies in the east of the country, a region long regarded as peripheral. Today, decisions on investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars, launched precisely there, are being made in conference rooms in Munich, London, and Hartford. What exactly has happened in Podkarpacie?
In 2003, several companies gathered in Rzeszów and decided to do something that no one in Poland had previously attempted on such a scale. More than 20 years ago, this led to the creation from scratch of an industrial cluster in a region associated more with agriculture than with advanced manufacturing. At the time, exports amounted to 250 million dollars. Employment across the entire aviation industry in Podkarpacie stood at around 10,000 people. Today, those figures seem to belong to another era.
30 percent of the engine powering Airbus aircraft
Today, the Aviation Valley Association brings together more than 160 companies. The annual export value has surpassed 3 billion dollars. Employment has tripled to 30,000 people. Yet scale alone does not explain why this particular region succeeded. The answer lies in specifics.
As much as 30 percent of the GTF engine, currently the most advanced single-unit aircraft engine on the market, used in aircraft such as the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737 MAX, is manufactured in and around Jasionka near Rzeszów. These engines are now flying across Europe, Asia, and the United States, while their key components are produced in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship.
Pratt & Whitney Rzeszów employs 4,200 people. MTU Aero Engines in Tajęcina manufactures components for the Boeing Dreamliner and Gulfstream aircraft. Safran has opened a research and development center in Rzeszów, where ultimately 250 engineers are expected to work. Lufthansa Technik and MTU Aero Engines jointly established EME Aero, one of the world’s largest maintenance centers for GTF engines.
Mielec produces Black Hawk helicopters for the military
Alongside civil aviation, the defense industry is also expanding. Polish Aviation Works (PZL) in Mielec belongs to Lockheed Martin and is the corporation’s largest manufacturing facility outside the United States. Black Hawk helicopters are produced there. The PZL Mielec supply chain alone generates an additional 5,000 jobs in cooperating Polish companies.
The geopolitical context has further strengthened this ecosystem. In 2025, Poland allocated PLN 186 billion to defense spending, equivalent to 4.7 percent of GDP. Part of these funds flows directly to Podkarpacie-based plants through contracts, while another portion reaches the region via supply chains. Proximity to the Ukrainian border has ceased to be perceived as a burden and has instead become an advantage.
Infrastructure is catching up with industry
Infrastructure development has followed the inflow of capital. Between 2024 and 2025, the Rzeszów branch of the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) spent PLN 3.3 billion on road investments. The freight terminal in Korczowa, a strategic border crossing, is expected to require PLN 1.2 billion in investment.
Jasionka Airport already handles 1.3 million passengers annually, while by the end of 2024 its cumulative impact on the regional economy had been estimated at PLN 3.1 billion.
LOTAMS, a subsidiary of the Polish Aviation Group, is building a maintenance base near Jasionka worth PLN 500 million. In October 2025, it became the first entity in Europe to receive Embraer maintenance authorization for E2 family engines.
All of this creates a picture that is difficult to explain through a single decision, funding program, or political initiative. The cluster was built over two decades, one investment attracting another, one generation of specialists training the next. Today, new investors come not because they are offered tax incentives, but because their partners and suppliers are already there.