Warsaw Chopin Airport

Warsaw Chopin is Poland's largest and busiest airport, handling roughly 21.4M passengers (2024) and serving as the principal hub of LOT Polish Airlines — a Star Alliance member and one of the oldest continuously operating airlines in the world (founded 1929). WAW sits 10 km (6 mi) south of central Warsaw in the Włochy district at 362 ft (110 m) elevation, on a 680 ha (1,680 acre) site named after the composer Frédéric Chopin since 2001. LOT operates Warsaw as its central transfer point for Central and Eastern Europe, leveraging Poland's geographic position to build a 'Central European gateway' connecting North America (New York-JFK, Newark, Chicago-O'Hare, Miami, Los Angeles, Toronto) and East Asia (Tokyo-Haneda, Seoul-Incheon) through to dozens of regional points across the Baltics, the Balkans, and the former Soviet states. Ryanair, Wizz Air, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France, British Airways, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, and Qatar Airways all operate scheduled service, making WAW the widest international network in Poland with 162 destinations across 58 airlines. Two runways — a 12,106 ft (3,690 m) primary 15/33 and a 9,186 ft (2,800 m) 11/29 — support a single unified terminal (Terminal A, consolidated from the former Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 buildings in 2015) with 45 gates, of which 27 are jet-bridge-equipped. Capacity is currently around 22M and the airport is operating at effective saturation; accordingly the Polish government has committed to building the new Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK) mega-hub between Warsaw and Łódź, scheduled to assume WAW's commercial role from 2032, after which Chopin is planned for closure or conversion. In the meantime, WAW remains Poland's dominant international gateway and a strategic Star Alliance node between Western Europe and Asia.