New central airport by 2032
Tusk downgrades PiS airport plans for Warsaw
26.06.2024, 17:07
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Poland is embarking on the adventure of building a new central airport near Warsaw. Construction is to be completed in just eight years. By then, 30 billion euros will have been spent. The plan originates from the PiS government, but has now been adapted to reality, as Prime Minister Tusk explains.
Poland wants to build a new central airport near Warsaw. The airport is scheduled to open in 2032 and will be designed to accommodate up to 34 million passengers a year, said Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw. The cost of the airport and the expansion of the infrastructure is estimated at 30 billion euros. An expansion of the Polish airline Lot is also planned.
The construction of a “Central Transport Hub” (CPK) was one of the controversial prestige projects of the now-defeated national conservative PiS government, which ruled the country from 2015 to 2023. Tusk’s liberal conservative government, which has been in office since December, is sticking to the construction of the major airport, but according to Tusk, wants to significantly modify the project and adapt it to the needs of the country. “Ultimately, someone has to build it, but it has to be based on realistic assumptions,” said Tusk.
According to the original plans of the PiS government, the new major airport in Baranow, 60 kilometers west of Warsaw, was not only to replace the capital’s existing airport, but also to be a new air hub for Central and Eastern Europe. The then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki raved about 100 million passengers a year. Critics warned that these expectations were unrealistic. By comparison: the BER in Berlin recorded 23 million passengers last year, while in Frankfurt am Main the figure was 59.4 million.
Disconnect from “political propaganda and ideology”
The Warsaw Chopin Airport was opened in 1934 and named after the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin in 2001. The airport says it offers connections to 7 Polish and 112 international destinations. The Polish Statistical Office reported almost 18.5 million passengers last year.
But not only the corona pandemic, but also Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have changed the reality in Poland and the region. Construction, which the PiS wanted to complete by 2027, has not yet begun. Tusk now stressed that Poland needs a modern airport for the future, but he wants to decouple the project from “political propaganda and ideology”. This also includes the government burying the plan of its predecessors to build a central railway junction in Baranow next to the airport, which would be connected to all parts of the country by new lines, so-called spokes. Instead, work is being done to better connect Polish cities by expanding the existing routes for high-speed trains, said Tusk.
In connection with the construction of the new central airport, the Polish airline Lot is to expand. According to Tusk, it will be “not quite as big as Lufthansa, but of a similar size”. By 2032, the aircraft fleet is to be doubled to 135 aircraft. The plan is for Lot to operate around 60 percent of its connections from the new major airport.