Warsaw Chopin Airport

For the airport near the town of Warsaw, New York, United States, see Perry-Warsaw Airport.

Warsaw Chopin Airport Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie Warszawa-Okęcie Airport
IATA: WAW – ICAO: EPWA WAW Location of airport in Poland
Summary
Airport type		civil, military
Operator		Polish Airports State Enterprise (PPL)
Serves		Warsaw
Location		Warsaw (Okęcie), Poland
Hub for		LOT Polish Airlines EuroLOT Enter Air Wizz Air
Elevation AMSL		110 m / 361 ft
Coordinates		52°09′57″N 20°58′02″E / 52.16583°N 20.96722°E / 52.16583; 20.96722Coordinates: 52°09′57″N 20°58′02″E / 52.16583°N 20.96722°E / 52.16583; 20.96722
Website		www.lotnisko-chopina.pl
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	m	ft
11/29	2,800	9,186	Asphalt
15/33	3,690	12,106	Asphalt
Statistics (2010)
Passengers			8,712,384
Movements			116,693
Statistics: Warsaw Chopin Airport[1] Sources: Polish AIP at EUROCONTROL[2]

Warsaw Chopin Airport (Polish: Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie) (IATA: WAW, ICAO: EPWA) is an international airport located in the Włochy district of Warsaw, Poland. Poland's busiest airport, Warsaw Chopin handles just under 50% of the country's air passenger traffic.^[3]

Formerly Warsaw-Okecie Airport (Port lotniczy Warszawa-Okęcie) or Okecie International Airport, the airport bore the name of its Okęcie neighborhood throughout its history, until its renaming for Polish composer and former Warsaw resident Frédéric Chopin in 2001. Despite the official change, "Okecie" ("Lotnisko Okęcie") remains in popular and industry use, including air traffic and aerodrome references.

Warsaw Chopin handles approximately 300 scheduled flights daily and an ever rising number of charters. London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Amsterdam are the busiest international connections, while Kraków, Wrocław, and Gdańsk are the most popular domestic ones.^[4]

History

In 1924, when urban development around Warsaw's aerodrome at Mokotów Fields (Pole Mokotowskie) began affecting air traffic, the Ministry of Railways purchased land near the village of Okęcie to construct a new airport. In 1933, The Central Airport (Okęcie) took over the handling of all traffic from the Pole Mokotowskie. During World War II, Okęcie was often used as a battleground between the German Army and Polish resistance and was practically destroyed. After liberation, LOT Polish Airlines resumed operations at Okęcie, using pre-war infrastructure. In 1956, maintenance of Okęcie was transferred from LOT Polish Airlines to state administration. In 1969 a new international terminal was built to handle 1 million passengers annually, few years later a separate, temporary arrival hall was built. Meanwhile, domestic flights continued to operate from the facilities built on the site of the pre-war terminal. In 1979 a new arrivals hall, the so-called ‘Finnish Hall’ opened. In March 2001, Warsaw Airport was renamed in honour of the Polish pianist Frédéric Chopin (though this name is almost never used in practice, and most users know the place simply as Okęcie).

Runways

Satellite picture

The airport has two intersecting runways, whose configuration and available taxiways under current rules permit 34 passenger operations (takeoffs or landings) per hour.^[4]

Preferential runways

The following preferential runway system has been established for the airport:^[5]

Arrivals:

1. Runway 33
2. Runway 11
3. Runway 15
4. Runway 29

Departures:

1. Runway 29
2. Runway 15
3. Runway 33
4. Runway 11

Between 20:00 and 04:00 hours (in winter: 21:00 and 05:00), Runway 15/33 is used, weather and technical considerations permitting.^[5]

Terminals

Southern hall (check-in areas A and B, former Terminal 1) was built in 1992 with capacity for 3.5 million passengers per year to replace the ageing complex from the communist era. Initially it handled all the traffic. In 2005, the old arrival hall from 70s was refurbished and reopened, and under the name "Etiuda" became a temporary terminal for low-cost traffic. In March 2009 the Etiuda terminal was closed and low-cost carriers and some other carriers (mainly SkyTeam alliance members) moved to T1. Since 2007 the T2, a newly built terminal adjacent to T1, has been gradually taking over the major part of the traffic.

Northern hall (check-in areas C, D and E, former Terminal 2) is a new terminal which became fully operational on 12 March 2008, two years after the originally planned opening date. The arrivals area was in operation from mid-2007 but problems with safety certification and disagreements between the airport and the construction firm delayed full operation. The new terminal is considerably larger^[6] than the older Terminal 1 and has taken over departures for all Star Alliance and OneWorld airlines and a few other carriers.

In 2010, the designation of terminals has changed and the entire T1+T2 complex is currently designed as 'Terminal A' divided into five check-in areas (A, B, C, D, E). The complex contains 45 passenger gates, that contains 27 airbridges.

By 2015, the southern hall will have been redesigned, reconstructed and fully integrated into the 'Terminal A' complex.

Airlines and destinations

Sculptured head of Frédéric Chopin installed on a monument base in front of Terminal 1

Departure hall of Terminal 1

Terminal 2 façade

Baggage claim area, Terminal 2

Terminal 2 departures

Aircraft stand at Warsaw Frédéric Chopin Airport

Airlines	Destinations	Check-in area
Aer Lingus	Dublin	C-E
Aeroflot	Moscow-Sheremetyevo	A-B
Aerosvit Airlines	Kiev-Boryspil	A-B
airBaltic	Riga	C-E
Air France	Paris-Charles de Gaulle	A-B
Alitalia	Rome-Fiumicino	A-B
Austrian Airlines operated by Tyrolean Airways	Vienna	C-E
Belavia	Minsk	A-B
British Airways	London-Heathrow	C-E
Brussels Airlines	Brussels	C-E
Czech Airlines	Prague	C-E
El Al	Tel Aviv	C-E
Eurolot	Poprad-Tatry [begins 8 December]
Finnair	Helsinki	C-E
Iceland Express operated by Astraeus Airlines	Reykjavik-Keflavik	A-B
KLM	Amsterdam	A-B
KLM operated by KLM Cityhopper	Amsterdam	A-B
LOT Polish Airlines	Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Belgrade, Berlin-Tegel, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Cairo, Chicago-O'Hare, Copenhagen, Donetsk, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Gdańsk, Geneva, Hamburg, Hanoi, Helsinki, Istanbul-Atatürk, Kaliningrad, Katowice, Kiev-Boryspil, Kraków, Larnaca, London-Heathrow, Lviv, Madrid, Milan-Malpensa, Minsk, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Munich, New York-JFK, Newark, Nice, Odessa, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Poznań, Prague, Rome-Fiumicino, Rzeszów, St Petersburg, Sofia, Stockholm-Arlanda, Szczecin, Tallinn, Tbilisi, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Toronto-Pearson, Vienna, Wrocław, Yerevan, Zürich	C-E
LOT Polish Airlines operated by EuroLOT	Berlin-Tegel, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków, Poznań, Riga, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Vilnius, Wrocław	C-E
LOT Polish Airlines operated by SprintAir	Bydgoszcz	C-E
Lufthansa	Frankfurt	C-E
Lufthansa Regional operated by Augsburg Airways	Munich	C-E
Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings	Düsseldorf	C-E
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine	Frankfurt, Munich	C-E
Malév Hungarian Airlines	Budapest	C-E
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Oslo-Gardermoen, Stavanger	A-B
OLT Jetair	Gdańsk, Wrocław, Rzeszów	A-B
Royal Air Maroc	Seasonal: Agadir, Casablanca	A-B
Scandinavian Airlines	Copenhagen	C-E
SprintAir	Zielona Góra	A-B
Swiss International Air Lines operated by Contact Air	Zürich	C-E
TAP Portugal	Lisbon	C-E
Turkish Airlines	Istanbul-Atatürk	C-E
Wizz Air	Barcelona, Beauvais-Tillé, Brussels South-Charleroi, Cork, Doncaster/Sheffield, Eindhoven, Forlì, Glasgow-Prestwick, Gothenburg-City, Liverpool, London-Luton, Malmö, Milan-Orio al Serio, Rome-Fiumicino, Sandefjord, Stavanger [begins 27 March 2012], Stockholm-Skavsta Seasonal: Burgas, Madrid	A-B

Seasonal charters

Airlines	Destinations
Air Poland	Agadir, Antalya, Bangkok-Suvarnabumi, Bodrum, Chania, Goa, Heraklion, Hurghada, Monastir, Paphos, Porlamar, Rhodes, Sal, Sharm el-Sheikh, Varadero, Zakynthos
AMC Airlines	Sharm el-Sheikh
Arkia Israel Airlines	Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion
BH Air	Burgas, Varna
Bulgarian Air Charter	Varna
Enter Air	Agadir, Antalya, Araxos-Patras, Athens, Bangkok-Suvarnabumi, Bodrum, Burgas, Catania, Chania, Colombo[7], Corfu, Dalaman, Djerba, Dubrovnik, Enfidha, Faro, Fuerteventura, Girona, Heraklion, Hurghada, Izmir, Kos, Lamezia-Terme, Malaga, Marsa Alam, Monastir, Olbia, Palma De Mallorca, Phuket [8] , Rhodes, Seville, Sharm el Sheikh, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Thessalonki, Varna, Zakyntos
Jet4You	Agadir
LOT Charters	Burgas, Grenoble, Heraklion, Palma De Mallorca, Paphos, Rhodes, Saloniki
Nouvelair	Monastir
Ukraine International Airlines	Simferopol
Royal Wings	Amman-Queen Alia
Sky Airlines	Antalya
Small Planet Airlines	Antalya, Burgas, Heraklion, Palma de Mallorca, Varna
Sun d'Or opreated by El Al	Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion
Travel Service	Funchal, Palma de Mallorca, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Tenerife
YES Airways	Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman, Heraklion, Izmir, Marsa Alam, Monastir, Taba

Cargo airlines

Cargo Terminal

Airlines	Destinations
DHL Aviation	Leipzig/Halle
FedEx Express	Paris-Charles de Gaulle
Genex	Minsk
SprintAir	Bydgoszcz, Gdansk, Katowice, Kiev-Zhulyany, Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw
TNT Air Cargo	Berlin-Schönefeld, Liège
UPS Airlines	Chengdu, Cologne/Bonn, Shanghai-Pu Dong

Statistics

Passenger traffic in the period 1995-2010, from the airport's official webpage:^[1]

• 1994 - 2,198,008
• 1995 - 2,735,469
• 1996 - 3,090,321
• 1997 - 3,484,452
• 1998 - 3,815,624
• 1999 - 3,997,531
• 2000 - 4,325,814
• 2001 - 4,713,655
• 2002 - 4,936,835
• 2003 - 5,166,991
• 2004 - 6,085,111
• 2005 - 7,071,881
• 2006 - 8,101,827
• 2007 - 9,268,476
• 2008 - 9,460,606
• 2009 - 8,320,927
• 2010 - 8,712,384
• 2011 (JAN-OCT) - 8,070,000 (about)

Ground transportation

Access

Warsaw Chopin Airport is located in the south-west part of Warsaw, approximately 10 km (6.21 mi) from the city centre. The airport is easy to access by car, the municipal bus service or taxi.

Żwirki i Wigury, named after the celebrated aviators who won the Challenge International de Tourisme in 1932, is the artery leading to the airport.^[9]

Taxi

Taxis are also available at the airport.^[9]

Bus

Warsaw city center can be reached by the bus lines: 175 and 188 during the day and N32 at night. There is also an additional line 148 that provides access to Ursynów (a southern part of Warsaw) and Praga (an eastern part of Warsaw). The fare is PLN 2.8 (PLN 3.6 from august,16th.) (Reduced fare 50% normal fee) one-way for all the lines (day and night).^[9]

Rail

There are no direct rail links to the airport. As of 2010, a rail link is being built at a cost of 230 million złoty to connect the airport's Warsaw Chopin Airport railway station (built as part of Terminal A) to Warsaw city centre.^[10]

Future auxiliary airport at Modlin

Main article: Modlin Airport

A proposal to convert of a former military airfield north of the city into Warsaw's second international airport for low-cost carriers is, as of May 2008, awaiting government approval on environmental grounds, but due to proximity to bird migration routes and protected bird sanctuary wetlands, may be delayed or ultimately blocked. Modlin is also to service charter carriers and in some undefined future, cargo, but due to chronic delays in commencing needed construction, is not expected to become operational until 2011 at the earliest. Meanwhile other regional military airports at Sochaczew and Radom are being readied by their local governments and private investors to compete with Modlin for Warsaw-region low cost passenger traffic and cargo.

Weddings

On 31 July 2010 at approximately 16:00 local time the first ever wedding was held in the airport chapel in Terminal 2.

Accidents

Accidents at or near WAW

• On 19 December 1962, a LOT Polish Airlines Vickers Viscount 804 crashed on approach after a flight from Brussels and Berlin-Schönefeld Airport, while attempting a go-around. All 33 passengers on board died.
• On 14 March 1980, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 007, Ilyushin Il-62 aircraft crashed on final approach from New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport, when attempting a go-around. All 87 passengers on board died, including the entire amateur US boxing team, Polish pop singer Anna Jantar and Alan P. Merriam.
• On 9 May 1987, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055, Ilyushin Il-62M took-off for a flight to New York-JFK Airport and returned to Okęcie, after an engine failure. During its approach the aircraft crashed in a heavily wooded-area, short of the runway. All 183 passengers on board died.
• On 17 December 1991, Alitalia Flight 1212, a McDonnell-Douglas DC 9-32 arriving from Rome-Fiumicino Airport, landed next to the runway after unstabilized approach. As a result, the nose gear of the aircraft collapsed. All 96 passengers and crew survived, however the aircraft was damaged beyond repair and written-off.
• On 14 September 1993, Lufthansa Flight 2904, an Airbus A320-200, overran the runway and crashed into an embankment, after a flight from Frankfurt. The co-pilot and one passenger died, and 68 passengers and crew were injured.
• On 31 December 1993, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 002, a Boeing 767-300ER arriving from Chicago-O'Hare Airport, suffered substantial damage after its nose gear collapsed when touching down. There were no fatalities.
• On November 1, 2011, LOT Polish Airlines Flight 016, a Boeing 767-300ER, inbound from Newark Liberty Airport safely landed at Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport after a mechanical failure of the landing gear prior to landing. The cockpit crew successfully performed an emergency landing at the airport with no loss of life or injuries.^[11][12]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Airport Statistics
2. ^ EAD Basic
3. ^ Data from The Civil Aviation Office of Poland (Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego). (Polish)
4. ^ ^{a b} "Dokładnie 72 lata temu otwarto lotnisko Okęcie", www.tur-info.pl (information originally available from the official airport webpage), 6 June 2006. Link accessed 2008-05-07. (Polish)
5. ^ ^{a b} Boeing Company data sheet for noise policies at WAW/EPWA, Boeing.com, June 2007. Link accessed 2008-05-07.
6. ^ "Airport specifications". http://www.lotnisko-chopina.pl/content/informations/en/terminalinfo.php. Retrieved 2009-03-12. ^{[dead link]}
7. ^ http://www.enterair.pl/map/show
8. ^ http://www.enterair.pl/map/show
9. ^ ^{a b c} "Departing from Warsaw". lotnisko-chopina.pl. http://www.lotnisko-chopina.pl/content/departure/en/access.php. Retrieved 2010-04-14. ^{[dead link]}
10. ^ "Pociągiem na lotnisko" (in Polish). ZTM Warszawa. http://www.ztm.waw.pl/informacje.php?i=77&c=98&l=1. Retrieved 2010-09-14. 
11. ^ "Samolot wylądował w Warszawie bez podwozia". RMF FM. November 1, 2011. http://www.rmf24.pl/fakty/polska/news-samolot-wyladowal-w-warszawie-bez-podwozia,nId,383426. Retrieved November 1, 2011. 
12. ^ [http://avherald.com/h?article=4456bd6b

External links

• Official website of the Warsaw Fryderyk Chopin Airport (English) (Polish)