Frederick Chopin International Airport, Warsaw, Poland

Frederick Chopin International Airport, which first opened in 1969, is situated about 10km southwest of Warsaw city centre on a 500ha site. The airport is named after the Polish composer but was formerly known as Okecie Airport.

The airport has two runways (11/29 2,800m² (9,186ft²) 50m wide and 15/33 3,689m² (12,106ft²) 60m wide) and 21 taxiways and this infrastructure allows 34 operations an hour. The airport handled just over 8.1 million passengers in 2006, an increase of 14% over 2005.

With passenger traffic increasing, the airport instigated expansion plans back in 2004. The expansion took the form of a new terminal (terminal two), which has been integrated into the design of the older terminal.

Terminal one only has a capacity of 3.5 million passengers a year but the new terminal will increase the airport’s overall capacity to ten million passengers a year in the first phase and around 12 million in phase two.

Other projects at the airport have included access road improvements, a new 9,400-space car park, apron parking improvements and runway lighting improvements. The airport is operated and managed by Przedsiębiorstwo Państwowe Porty Lotnicze (PPL). The improvement project has an estimated budget of around €190m.

TERMINAL TWO CONSTRUCTION

In May 2004 construction work began on the new terminal two. The general construction contract was awarded to Ferrovial Agroman SA, Budimex SA and Estudio Lamela SL (the consortium was also responsible for the design and architecture).

The new terminal facilities will be able to handle 6.5 million passengers a year when fully open. Terminal two has an arrivals area, a departures hall and three concourses designated south, north and central. The current two-storey terminal was first constructed in 1992 and has now been given a new lease of life by remodelling and the construction of the adjoining terminal two. The two terminals share the same roof.

Other building work has included a new VIP pavilion and an underground station for the suburban train linking the airport with the centre of Warsaw.

TERMINAL TWO SETBACK

The construction of terminal two will add over 94,000m² of floor space and was due to be finished with the whole terminal, which opened in November 2007 (aside from the south and central concourses which were due to be completed by March 2008).

The arrivals hall was opened in December 2006 (and is in use for the entire airport) however the departures hall and north concourse failed their fire safety inspection and have been unable to open. In October 2007 the operator PPL, after the second failed fire inspection dismissed the building consortium and parts of the departures hall and north concourse have now been left unfinished. The most likely date for terminal two to open is March 2008 especially if there is legal action over the dismissal of the builders.

The number of check-in desks that will be added by terminal two includes 70 normal check-in desks, ten hand-luggage check-in desks, six self-check-in, two oversized-luggage check-in and one VIP check-in. The number of gates at T2 will be 44.

AIRFIELD IMPROVEMENTS

The airfield improvements have been undertaken by a consortium of ADB and Siemens. The contract had a value of PLN6.52m (€1.6m) and has involved modernisation of three parking areas for aircraft and the construction of a new plane parking area near the new second terminal.

Another addition is the improvement of runway safety by the installation of 1,300 CAT III taxiway and apron lights and also 51 guidance signs. The new lights and installations have been integrated into the existing light control and monitoring system. The project was divided into four phases and the first three were scheduled to be complete by the end of 2007.