2016: a record year for Warsaw Chopin Airport
More than 12.8 million passengers were handled at Chopin Airport throughout 2016. This is an absolute historical record of the airport. The number of cities with a direct connection with Warsaw was also a record one.
The record year was closed with a record December, during which Chopin Airport handled 980 thousand. people. That's by 35.4 percent more than in December 2015. (724 thousand). It is the 27th consecutive month of growth in the number of passengers and the 20th monthly record since October 2014.
The entire 2016 was the best in the 82-year history of the Warsaw airport. In the period from January to December it has served 12 million 836.5 thousand. people, an increase of 14.5 percent compared to the full year 2015.
In domestic traffic 1 million 422 thousand people have traveled - 20.9 percent more than the year before (the record of 2012, when the airport handled over 1.5 million people in domestic traffic, was not beaten however). In international traffic the number of passengers has reached the number of 11 million 414 thousand, an increase of 13.8 percent.
- Such large increase in the number of passengers handled at the airport were possible thanks to a record network of connections. During the whole of 2016 the airlines operating at Chopin Airport have launched as many as 41 new routes. In the summer season, in the scheduled traffic, we had 110 destinations. In winter you can fly from Warsaw to 100 airports on three continents - said Przemyslaw Przybylski, a spokesman for Chopin Airport.
Most new connections - over 30 – were launched by LOT Polish Airlines, i.a. to Tokyo and Seoul. Furthermore, the flights to Warsaw were launched by two airlines previously absent at Chopin Airport: Air Canada Rouge (connection to Toronto) and Air China (connection to Beijing).
The growth of traffic at Chopin Airport was also influenced by the decision of Wizzair to increase the number of aircraft based in Warsaw from five to six (including two A321), and increasing the number of routes to 48. Emirates and Qatar Airways exchanged for larger aircraft serving routes to Dubai and Doha, and from October Ryanair moved its domestic flights to Chopin Airport. The carrier makes three flights daily both to Gdansk and Wroclaw.
The most popular routes of 2016 in scheduled traffic were: London (all airports, 880 thousand in total), Paris (all airports, 524 thousand in total), Frankfurt (497 thousand), Amsterdam (416 thousand), Brussels (342 thousand). In charter traffic, the most passengers traveled on these routes: Burgas (79 thousand), Heraklion (73 thousand), Antalya (68 thousand), Fuerteventura (65 thousand), Rhodes (63 thousand).
2017 also promises to be very optimistic. Airlines have already announced the launch of 14 new routes, including connections to Newark and Los Angeles in the USA (LOT), Kiev, Nice, Vilnius (Wizzair) and Szczecin (Ryanair). Several other interesting directions are waiting for the official announcement.