10 million passengers at Chopin Airport

Warsaw Chopin Airport has served 10 million passengers in one year for the first time in its history. Never before has the Warsaw airport been so busy.

The lucky 10 millionth passenger was Ms Anna Hollande from Łódź, Poland, who was travelling for leisure on a LOT Polish Airlines plane en route to New York. Chopin Airport’s authorities offered her free entry to Executive Lounges and the airline – the opportunity to travel in business class.

Ms Hollande said: “I am very happy to be the ten millionth passenger. I think Chopin Airport is a very nice place and we have nothing to be ashamed of compared to other international airports. It is really great I will be able to fly in business class of a Dreamliner. I don’t fly a lot and I have never travelled in business class before. It is really nice of LOT to offer me this opportunity.”

Never before has Chopin Airport been so busy. In 2012, the airport’s previous best year, it welcomed a total of 9,587,00 travellers and it looks like 2013 is going to be even better, with one million passengers more.

Michał Marzec, director of Chopin Airport, said: “This success is more than we hoped for. According to our earlier forecasts, 2013 was supposed to be less busy than 2012, due to the opening of an airport in Modlin, which took over low-cost flights. It was one of the reasons why, shortly after the end of Euro 2012, we closed the old part of the terminal and began its major redevelopment. We also completed a major resurfacing of the longer runway this summer. But then, due to some unexpected technical problems at Modlin Airport and the resulting decision of budget airlines to transfer all flights to Warsaw, we had to accommodate the biggest traffic volumes in the history of Chopin Airport, and all this despite a significantly reduced capacity. And we coped with that easily.”

He added: “I would like to thank all passengers who have contributed to this record by using Chopin Airport this year. My thanks go also to all Chopin Airport staff for their everyday commitment and efforts to ensure the best possible passenger services and baggage and aircraft handling.”

The largest airlines by the number of passenger carried operating at Chopin Airport in 2013 were: LOT Polish Airlines (40.4% market share), Ryanair (12%), Wizz Air (9.1%), Lufthansa (4.5%) and Enter Air (3.8%), with the top 5 most popular direct destinations being: London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Brussels.