Poland's airports handled 18,945, 857 passengers in 2009, down 8.25 percent from 2008, the Civil Aviation Office (ULC) said on Monday. ULC reported that in the fourth quarter of 2009, the number of passengers handled by Polish airports went down by 1.84 percent from the corresponding period of 2008 to 4,174,278. Warsaw's Okecie airport placed first with 8,282,000 passengers, down 12.24 percent year-on-year. It was followed by Cracow (down 8. 08 pct), Katowice (down 4.37 pct) and Wroclaw (down 10.54 pct). The only Polish airport that reported increased passengers in 2009 was Rzeszow, up 18.58 percent year-on-year. According to ULC, 2009 was a very difficult year for the Polish aviation transport. 