Did you know Warsaw’s Okęcie airport opened in 1934 and only took Chopin’s name in 2001?

Warsaw Chopin Airport has worn the composer’s name for barely a quarter of its history. The airport’s official history page says the site was renamed in honour of Frédéric Chopin in 2001, while the airport itself was officially opened by President Ignacy Mościcki in April 1934.

Warsaw’s first airfield was set up in 1910 on the Tsarist cavalry training ground now known as Mokotów Field. In 1924 the state bought 460 hectares near the village of Okęcie, construction of a new central airport began the following year, and in its first year of operation it served 10,750 passengers.

The Second World War hit the site hard. Bombs fell on Okęcie on the first day of the war in 1939 and, in January 1945, retreating German troops destroyed the runway and nearby buildings. Flights resumed after the war, the international terminal opened on 29 April 1969 and the airport handled one million passengers for the first time in 1971. A new passenger terminal opened on 1 July 1992, the railway station followed in June 2012 and biometric passport gates were installed in March 2019. By 2018 the airport was serving more than 17.7 million passengers a year.

For passengers, the rail link and the e-gates are the parts of that history they are most likely to use. Before travelling, check the airport’s own pages for current train connections and for who is eligible to use the automated border gates.