Poland’s government has endorsed the country’s new hub airport project, although the programme has been revised and it will not open until 2032.
It will be able to handle 34 million passengers and the cost of construction by this date will reach zl131 billion ($32.5 billion).
Centralny Port Komunikacyjny, the project’s co-ordinator, has initiated the process for a final location decision which it expects at the end of this year, and plans to obtain a building permit in 2026.
Construction will be completed in 2031.
Prime minister Donald Tusk, speaking on 26 June, described the CPK programme as a “triple leap into modernity”, because it will not feature not only the new airport but also a series of high-speed rail lines connecting Warsaw, Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw, while Polish national airline LOT will develop as “one of the leading carriers”.
The rail network will link the capital to the major Polish cities in under 100min, he says.
Warsaw’s current Chopin airport, adds Tusk, will be expanded to bridge the capacity gap until the new hub is operational, while other regional airports – including Warsaw Modlin – will be modernised.
Tusk’s administration came to power at the end of 2023. He acknowledges that the decision to progress with the airport has taken time, but there has been a need to “depoliticise” and “objectively assess” the state of the project.
The government’s representative for CPK, Maciej Lasek, says the scheme has been made “realistic” to ensure that fitting it to the scheduled timeframe will be “feasible”, adding that its co-ordination with the rail investment means it will be a “complete project”.
Previous timetables had claimed the airport would open in 2028.
