I want to fly away! (Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport
Date:	13/05/08 (399 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly service, lot of connections, very close to city

Disadvantages: Etiuda is always packed, additional tax because of location

Living in Warsaw and being a regular traveller, I've spent a fair amount of time at Frederic Chopin Airport in Warsaw (formerly known as Okecie).

History
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Frederic Chopin Airport more commonly referred to as Okecie, has a relatively intersting history, it was used in 1933 to cope with the increase of traffic that was too great for the Pole Mokotowskie Aerodrome (Pole Mokotowskie is now a pleasant park with a fountain, several bars and the National Library). Okecie airport was the home of many a battle between the Polish resistance and the invading Germans during WW2 and this left it in a right old mess. LOT Airlines began flying from it after liberation.

The information you'll probably need if you're flying there:

Taxis immediately outside of the airport, charge about 2 or 3 times more than an average taxi, so you may be best off walking to the nearby road and flagging down one. You should pay about 20-25zl in the day and perhaps 30zl at night to get to the centre. Taxis are metered and there are rarely scams going on, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Alternatively you can take Bus 175 which visits the Central Station, Metro Centrum and the old town. Buy a ticket from a kiosk in the airport beforehand (24 hrs ticket is 7.20zl - although this price will go up slightly on the 2nd June 2008)

Remember if you are flying to another Schengen country, there is now no border control, to and from the UK - you will have to go through customs but they are not particularly strict. In theory you should not take any non sealed products like homemade bigos in your hand luggage, but we've done it before and when explained it's a present for family members, they are always pretty courteous about it.

The Frederic Chopin Airport is only 5km from the city centre and it therefore only takes 30 minutes to get to and from the city centre, as little as 10 minutes when there is no traffic. Due to it's central location, the airport is forced to pay higher taxes and this is leading to the plans of a future airport (Modlin) being built. Though that won't happen for at least 6 or 7 years.

What they do have at the moment is Terminal 1, Terminal 2 and Etiuda Terminal as well as future plans for a Terminal 3 to start being built in 2009. Terminal 2 was completed in March 2008, so it's still shining! Etiuda Terminal has been used for cheap flights for the last 5 years, it's really small and unbelievably crowded but the staff work their socks off to allow the queues to progress quickly. There is only about 1 shop on the other side of customs at Etiuda and it's mainly used for buying cigarettes. The section of main terminals (1 and 2) have a better selection of shops restaurants and bars on both the departure hall and the arrival section but it's not entirely riveting.

So where can you fly to? Well it would be rather pointless to write up each individual fight, so here is the full list taken from wikipedia:

Terminal 1

Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
Aerosvit Airlines (Kiev-Boryspil)
Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
British Airways (London-Gatwick [ends 26 October], London-Heathrow [begins 27 October])
operated by BA CityFlyer (London-City)
Centralwings (Edinburgh, London-Gatwick, Shannon, Varna [begins 7 June])
Dniproavia (Dniprepetrovsk)
KLM (Amsterdam)
operated by KLM Cityhopper (Amsterdam)

Terminal 2

Serves most departures as well as domestic flights. T2 handles all arrivals.

Adria Airways (Ljubljana)
Aer Lingus(Dublin)
Air China (Beijing) [begins 7 October]
Air Europa (Madrid) [ends 29 June]
Alitalia (Rome-Fiumicino)
Austrian Airlines
operated by Austrian Arrows (Vienna)
Belavia (Minsk)
Blue1 (Helsinki)
Brussels Airlines (Brussels)
Centralwings (Bologna, Catania [Starts 17 May], Dublin, Faro, Haugesund [Starts May 20,2008], Heraklion [begins 5 June], Lisbon, Rhodes [begins 25 May], Thessaloniki)
Clickair (Barcelona)
Czech Airlines (Prague)
El Al (Tel Aviv)
Finnair (Helsinki)
Iberia (Madrid)
Iceland Express (Reykjavik) [begins 15 May]
Jet Air (Bydgoszcz, Zielona Góra)
LOT Polish Airlines (Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin-Tegel, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Chicago-O'hare, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Gdańsk, Geneva, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Istanbul-Atatürk, 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, Prague, Riga, Rome-Fiumicino, Rzeszów, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Szczecin, Tallinn, Tel Aviv, Toronto-Pearson, Vienna, Wrocław, Zagreb [begins June], Zürich)
operated by EuroLOT (Gdańsk, Kaliningrad, Katowice, Kraków, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Vilnius, Wrocław, Zielona Góra [begins 28 October])
operated by Jet Air (Bydgoszcz)
Lufthansa (Frankfurt)
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine (Munich, Stuttgart)
Lufthansa Regional operated by Eurowings (Düsseldorf)
Malev Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
SAS Scandinavian Airlines (Copenhagen, Oslo-Gardermoen [begins 15 May])
Sun D'Or (Tel Aviv)
Swiss International Air Lines (Basel/Mulhouse, Zürich)
Turkish Airlines (Istanbul-Atatürk)
Volare Airlines (Milan-Malpensa)

Etiuda Terminal

Low cost carriers (except Centralwings, Clickair, and Volare Airlines) use the Etiuda terminal for departures. It is smaller and its facilities are rudimentary, and accordingly, its airport taxes are lower. While flights depart from the Etiuda terminal, all arrivals are handled at Terminal 2.

bmibaby (Birmingham [begins 27 May], Cardiff, East Midlands)
easyJet (Bristol, London-Luton)
Germanwings (Cologne/Bonn, Stuttgart)
Norwegian Air Shuttle (Alicante, Athens, Bergen, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Malaga, Oslo-Gardermoen, Paris-Orly, Rygge, Rome-Fiumicino, Salzburg, Split [begins 28 June], Stavanger, Stockholm-Arlanda, Trondheim)
Ryanair (Dublin)
Wizz Air (Belfast-International, Bourgas [begins 10 June], Brussels-Charleroi, Corfu [begins 14 June], Doncaster/Sheffield, Dortmund, Durham-Tees Valley, Glasgow-Prestwick, Gothenburg-City, Grenoble, Liverpool, London-Luton, Malmö, Milan-Bergamo, Oslo-Torp, Paris-Beauvais, Stockholm-Skavsta)

Cargo Terminal

DHL
FedEx
Sky Express
TNT Airways
UPS
White Eagle Aviation

Summary: One of Central Europe's best airports