Leading airports in Poland 2013-2023

The air transportation market in Poland is developing at a fast pace. Between 2019 and 2035, the number of passengers handled by Polish airports is expected to more than double and reach over 94 million passengers. In 2023, the undisputed leader among Polish airports was Chopin Airport in Warsaw, which handled over 18.4 million passengers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this number dropped to roughly 5.5 million passengers in 2020 and 2021.

Air transportation in Central and Eastern Europe

Although the aviation industry in Central and Eastern Europe is still not a threat to the highly developed competition from Western Europe, the air transport market in these countries is growing gradually. And while the Western market seems to be already saturated in this industry, there is still much room and opportunity for growth in the CEE region. The largest airports in the CEE countries have experienced significant increases in passenger traffic, particularly airports in Ukraine, which achieved a record growth of 20 percent. Whereas airports in Poland serviced more than 22 million passengers, strengthening Chopin Airport in Poland as a leader among airports in Central and Eastern Europe. Hungarian WizzAir remains the largest carrier in the region.

Investments in Polish airport infrastructure

Airport infrastructure investment refers to the expenditure on new construction and the improvement of existing facilities of the airport network. From 2013 to 2017, a survey was conducted by the World Economic Forum, using a scale from 1 as significantly underdeveloped to 7 as extensive and efficient. During this period, Poland’s airport infrastructure rating peaked at 4.46 in 2016/17. Regarding airport infrastructure maintenance expenditure in Poland it decreased by 0.6 million euros (-15.67 percent) compared to the previous year. In total, the maintenance expenditure declined to 3.22 million euros in 2021. Moreover, the investment in airport infrastructure in Poland increased significantly by 60.9 million euros (+48.63 percent) since the previous year. Therefore, 2021 marks a significant change in investment compared to last year.