In Europe, large airports are no longer thought of simply as points of departure and arrival. Increasingly, these projects are designed as centers where planes, trains and roads intersect in the same place, in a logic of faster and more integrated mobility. It is precisely this model that Poland wants to bet on with its new infrastructure, a mega-airport that has gained momentum again and that could change the country’s weight on the European transport map.
The future Polish mega-airport, known in the project as CPK and also promoted under the management brand, is planned for the area between Warsaw and Łódź and should start with a capacity for 34 million passengers per year, with the possibility of expanding to 44 million, becoming one of the largest in Europe.
In the most recent projections prepared by IATA for the project manager, the infrastructure could exceed 32 million passengers in the first full year of operation, in 2032, and surpass the 40 million barrier by 2040.
Revised calendar and large-scale investment
The current version of the plan for this mega-airport in Europe is no longer based on the older figures that circulated when the project was launched. According to the official manager, the Polish Council of Ministers approved a Multi-Year Program 2024-2032 with a total envelope of 131.7 billion zlotys, around 30.6 billion euros.
Of this amount, 42.7 billion zlotys, approximately 9.9 billion euros, will be allocated directly to the construction of the airport, while 76.8 billion zlotys, approximately 17.9 billion euros, will finance the associated railway network, which should connect the new hub to the country’s main cities.
The Polish Ministry of Infrastructure, on the official portal gov.pl, indicates that the decision on the location of the airport was issued in January last year, that the construction of the terminal is scheduled for this year and that entry into operation is scheduled for before the end of 2032, in parallel with the first section of the high-speed railway between Warsaw and Łódź.
In February this year, Port Polska itself announced the opening of tenders for the terminal’s deep foundations, a clear sign that the project has entered a more concrete phase of work.
Terminal, runways and hub size
On the airport front, the design is already more defined. The Ministry of Infrastructure refers to a passenger terminal with around 450 thousand square meters in the first phase and capacity to process up to 11 thousand passengers per hour, while Port Polska details that the expansion was planned in two stages, first for 34 million and then for 44 million annual passengers.
The official plan for this mega-airport, designed to be one of the largest in Europe, also includes two parallel runways of 3,800 meters, with the possibility of subsequent growth, and a terminal prepared from the beginning to be expanded without blocking operations.
The same official source adds that the project was designed to have a strong component of connecting traffic, with 35% to 40% of passengers in transit, which shows the ambition to transform it into a true hub and not just an airport of origin and destination.
The great difference of this project is the connection between transport modes. The official manager says that the airport will be integrated with an underground railway station and that up to half of passengers will be able to arrive by train, with an estimated journey time of around 20 minutes from the center of Warsaw.
This railway axis is not limited to the capital. The first section of the high-speed line between Warsaw, the new airport and Łódź is expected to enter service with the opening of the airport, while the sections to Poznań and Wrocław remain scheduled for the end of 2035. This means that the CPK is being thought of from the beginning as a piece of a wider network, and not as an isolated infrastructure.
Architecture wants to combine plane, train and road in the same space
The architectural component is in charge of Foster + Partners, in consortium with Buro Happold. On the project’s official page, the British studio describes the future mega-airport as a “symbolic gateway” to Poland, with a large exchange square on land, naturally lit and surrounded by green areas, where air, railway and road intersect in a single functional space, representing an advance in Europe.
The approval of the terminal project last year reinforced this idea of integration. According to Port Polska, the terminal was designed to shorten routes, facilitate transfers and accommodate future expansion without a heavy operational disruption, which helps to understand why Warsaw wants to sell this infrastructure as a new logistics and mobility center for Central Europe.
The past stopped the project, but the official discourse changed
The project reaches this stage after several years of controversy and internal review. NIK, Poland’s Supreme Audit Institution, concluded in 2025 that the preparation of the CPK between 2021 and 2023 was not done adequately, pointing to unrealistic deadlines, oversight failures, delays in essential documents and old targets that did not have sufficient support, including the intention to open earlier and with an initial capacity of 40 million passengers per year.
It was precisely after this reevaluation that the program was redone with an updated calendar, costs and execution phases. Still, NIK itself left an important warning: the project remains sensitive to variables such as demand, investment costs and airport taxes, which means that the Polish ambition is more organized than before, but it is still not free from risk.
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