Warsaw Chopin Airport Guide: Poland’s Crowded Capital Hub
Warsaw Chopin Airport is the home of LOT Polish Airlines and handles a third of Poland's air traffic. Read about its runways, terminal, routes and future.
By The Aviation Hub
7 min read
Updated October 20, 2026 
Warsaw Chopin Airport sits inside the city limits of the Polish capital, six miles from the Old Town and squeezed between housing estates and a motorway. It is the busiest airport in Poland, the hub of LOT Polish Airlines and the gateway for roughly a third of all air passengers in the country. Around 24 million people passed through in 2025. Two crossing runways and a single terminal are near their limits, and a new mega airport to the west is meant to replace it in the next decade.
Warsaw Chopin Airport at a Glance
The codes are WAW and EPWA. Warsaw Chopin Airport lies in the Włochy district about 6 miles (10 km) south west of the city centre, at an elevation of 110 m (362 ft). It has two intersecting asphalt runways and one passenger terminal, Terminal A, with 45 gates of which 27 have airbridges. Poles still call it Okęcie after the district and the name survives in aviation use.
In 2025 the airport handled just over 24 million passengers on around 188,000 movements, which placed it among the 30 busiest airports in Europe. LOT Polish Airlines is the hub carrier and the Star Alliance anchor. Wizz Air and the charter specialist Enter Air both base aircraft here. The state enterprise Polish Airports, known as PPL, has run the airport since 1987 and answers to the infrastructure ministry. Flight status, parking and the free terminal wifi are described on the airport’s official website.
How Warsaw’s Airport Came to Be
Warsaw’s first aerodrome was Mokotów Field, close to the centre, which the growing city had surrounded by the early 1930s. A new Central Airport opened at Okęcie on 29 April 1934 with LOT, founded five years earlier, as its principal tenant. The Luftwaffe used the field during the occupation and it was largely destroyed in 1944. Rebuilding after the war was slow, and the first proper post war terminal opened in 1969 as Poland reconnected with the world.
The airport’s darkest years were the 1980s. LOT Flight 007, an Ilyushin Il-62, crashed on approach in March 1980 killing all 87 on board including the American boxing team. In May 1987 LOT Flight 5055, another Il-62, suffered an engine failure after take off and crashed into a forest near the city with the loss of all 183 people. Both accidents were traced to engine failures on the Soviet built jets, which LOT replaced with Boeing 767s as soon as politics allowed.
A new Terminal 1 opened in 1992 to serve the post communist boom, famous for the dark red interior that Poles nicknamed beetroot. Terminal 2 followed in 2008 and the two were later merged into a single Terminal A. The airport took the composer’s name in March 2001. In November 2011 a LOT 767 landed with its gear retracted after a hydraulic failure and everyone walked away, in one of the best known gear up landings of recent years.
Runways at Warsaw Chopin Airport
Warsaw Chopin Airport has two runways that cross near the terminal. The main runway 15/33 is 3,690 m (12,106 ft) long and 60 m wide, and LOT’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners rely on its length for departures. The secondary runway 11/29 is 2,800 m (9,186 ft) long and 50 m wide. Both are asphalt. The intersection limits the field to around 34 passenger movements an hour under current rules, and that figure is the airport’s single biggest constraint.
Runways 33 and 11 take almost all arrivals. Aircraft landing on 33 approach over the southern suburbs, while those landing on 11 come in over the western districts. Most departures use 29 or 15, and runway 15/33 carries everything when 11/29 closes for maintenance. Noise rules restrict night movements, and the housing that presses against the eastern boundary means there is no prospect of a third runway on this site.
Terminals and Airlines
Terminal A is the product of merging the 1992 building, now the south hall, with the much larger 2008 terminal. The south hall was gutted and reopened in 2015 and the beetroot red is gone. Check in is split into zones A to E with 116 desks, and the building has 45 gates. Schengen and non Schengen gates are separated on different levels.
LOT dominates with a fleet of Boeing 737-800s and 737 MAX 8s, Embraer E170s, E175s, E190s and E195s on European routes, and Boeing 787-8s and 787-9s on long haul. Wizz Air flies Airbus A320s and A321neos to leisure and diaspora destinations, and Enter Air’s 737s fly package holiday charters. Emirates, Air France, KLM, British Airways, Finnair and Air China all serve the terminal. Ryanair concentrates on Modlin to the north and runs a much smaller network from Warsaw Chopin Airport.
Routes and Destinations
London is the busiest international route, driven by the large Polish community in Britain, with Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam close behind. Krakow, Wroclaw and Gdansk are the busiest domestic routes and LOT uses them to feed its hub, though high speed rail has eroded the Krakow traffic. Munich, Vienna, Copenhagen and Oslo are also important business routes.
LOT’s long haul network is the airport’s distinctive feature. The 787s fly to New York JFK and Newark, Chicago, Toronto, Miami, Los Angeles, Seoul, Tokyo, Delhi and Mumbai, with San Francisco added in season. The airline has deliberately positioned Warsaw as a hub between Central Europe and North America and Asia. Cargo is modest but growing, with LOT Cargo and a handful of freighter operators using the cargo apron.
Getting to and from Warsaw Chopin Airport
The railway station beneath the terminal opened in 2012 and is the cheapest sensible way into town. SKM city trains and Koleje Mazowieckie regional trains run roughly every 15 minutes to Warszawa Centralna and Warszawa Śródmieście in around 20 to 25 minutes, and a standard city zone ticket covers the trip. Direct trains to Lodz began in 2019.
Buses 175 and 188 run into the city by day and the N32 at night, while bus 331 links the terminal with Wilanowska metro station. Taxis from the official ELE rank, along with Uber and Bolt, cost around PLN 50 to 80 (roughly £10 to £16) to the centre and take 20 to 40 minutes. The terminal fronts onto Żwirki i Wigury Street, which feeds the S2 and S79 expressways. Multi storey and long stay car parks sit beside the terminal.
Spotting and Photography
The best known spotting point is the approach to runway 33, where the roads and fields near the threshold on the southern side give close views of landing traffic. The embankment and car parks along the eastern boundary near the 29 threshold give views of departures lining up. The Courtyard and Renaissance hotels beside the terminal offer rooms facing the airfield, and the Courtyard in particular has long been a favourite.
LOT’s Dreamliners and Embraers make up most of the traffic, with Emirates and Air China wide bodies and plenty of Wizz Air A321neos for variety. Government and military visitors to the adjacent 1st Air Base, which shares the runways, can produce interesting aircraft. Light favours the eastern spots in the morning and the western side in the afternoon. Stay well back from the fence, do not photograph the military apron and be ready to show identification if the police ask.
What Comes Next
Warsaw Chopin Airport is being expanded as a bridge to the Central Communication Port, the CPK, planned at Baranów about 25 miles (40 km) west of the city. Work announced in 2024 and started in 2025 will enlarge the terminal footprint by around 15 per cent, add 21 wide body and 9 narrow body gates and raise capacity to more than 30 million passengers a year by 2029. The runways and slot limits stay as they are.
CPK is due to open around 2032 and will take over as the LOT hub, after which Chopin’s future is uncertain. The verdict is that Warsaw Chopin Airport will stay full and slightly frantic until a replacement finally arrives. Compare it with Vienna, Prague and Budapest on the Airports of the World map.
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