While Heathrow argues about a runway, Poland is pouring concrete for a megahub between Warsaw and Lodz. The next great European hub is not where you think.
The Airport Rising Between Warsaw And Lodz
Poland’s Centralny Port Komunikacyjny, (mercifully) shortened to CPK, is perhaps the most ambitious modern aviation project in Europe. It is a clean-sheet airport and rail hub going up between Warsaw (37 km west) and Lodz, designed from the first pencil as a transfer machine for LOT Polish Airlines and as the spine of a national high-speed rail network. One company vying to develop the airport also built the rail portion. This month brought the least glamorous kind of progress,, though important as CPK opened procurement for the contractor that will build the airport’s power supply system.
Power substations are rarely discussed here on Live And Let’s Fly (or BoardingArea.com for that matter) but it matters here because it signals the start of the project moving from blueprints to physical locations and disbursement of funds. This would not be the first mega project to face doubts it will ever come to pass. Projects that are real produce utility contracts, and CPK has moved firmly into the utility contract phase, a good sign for the airport moving forward with firm commitments.
While Western Europe Argues, Poland Pours Concrete
Heathrow has been debating a third runway since before some of its pilots were born. The third runway (a £33bn project) has passed some regulatory elements (UK Supreme Court approval, January 2026 budget allocation) but is still not a done deal. Schiphol’s government has spent recent years trying to cap flights at the airport, not grow them. Frankfurt and Paris operate under environmental and political constraints that make meaningful expansion a decade-long lawsuit. Even in the US, as Matthew and I have covered this month, Chicago’s own expansion has turned into a fight over who eats the cost overruns at O’Hare.
Against that backdrop, the European Union’s only clean-sheet megahub is rising in a country that Western European aviation has treated as a spoke for thirty years. Poland has the EU’s most consistently underrated economy (maybe the most underrated global economy, outpacing Japan for decades), a geographic position that makes one-stop connections between North America and Central Europe natural, and a flag carrier in LOT that has outgrown Warsaw Chopin, an airport that is hemmed in by the city and has no room left to give.
Whether US, European or even East Asian travelers will choose CPK remains to be seen and relies on a number of market factors we will only find out when it goes begins operations.
What This Means For US Travelers
LOT is a Star Alliance carrier, which means CPK is indirectly a Star Alliance story. Today, reaching secondary cities in Central and Eastern Europe from the US usually means funneling through Lufthansa hubs in Frankfurt, Munich, or Vienna. Matthew just flew one of these and I will in a couple of weeks as well. As lovely as those hubs are, it will be nice to have some new options. A purpose-built transfer hub in central Poland is aimed directly at that funnel, with shorter connections to the cities east of Berlin than are currently offered.
The rise of long-haul narrowbodies opens even more doors, a shift I wrote about when Air Canada joined the long-haul narrowbody club, because aircraft like the A321XLR let a mid-sized hub support transatlantic routes that never penciled with widebodies. For example, LOT doesn’t currently serve Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia (though they fly to both Newark and New York JFK), Montreal, or Charlotte – all technically in the range of an A321XLR and family aircraft (though LOT didn’t include the type in its first-ever Airbus order.)
None of this happens overnight, and many megaprojects have died before they ever got to this stage. The timeline stretches into the next decade and the risk of delay is high. But the direction of travel is unmistakable, and the contrast with the rest of the continent could not be sharper.
Is there a path for Poland to take over the Finnish Helsinki plan if and when the Russia-Ukraine or US-Iran wars end and connect the east and the west? Possibly. Turkish connects 130 countries (the most of any carrier in the world) through Istanbul. That’s stiff competition. Will oneworld flyers switch to CPK over nosebleed-high UK APD and British Airways/Virgin Atlantic surcharges? I wouldn’t bet on it, but the more expensive the fees and higher the barrier, the wider that door opens.
Conclusion
Europe’s aviation story for the past decade has been about limits like capped airports, blocked runways and expansion, and hubs that cannot grow further. CPK is one place on the continent where the story is still about ambition. Keep an eye on the boring milestones, the power contracts and the earthworks tenders (or, I guess, you can outsource that to me) because those are the tells that this is actually getting built. The next great European hub will not be announced with a ribbon cutting in London or Amsterdam. It is being assembled, tender by tender, in a field between Warsaw and Lodz.
What do you think?
Forgive my ignorance, but as long as the Russian/Ukraine war continues there may be expected delays. But looking ahead , I think this is an admirable plan.
Exactly. At this moment geography is not favorable.
Yes, the Russia-Ukraine war has directly complicated and slowed down the realization of the massive Port Polska hub. However, the conflict is also the primary geopolitical catalyst ensuring the mega-project still gets built.
Someone alert Matthew that a whole lot more background was released about the SFO agent story https://www.kqed.org/news/12091585/sfo-united-airlines-employee-allegedly-threatens-to-call-ice-on-us-citizen
I do love good infrastructure, but this will end up being a white elephant. Positioned poorly to serve the high yield markets you need to serve to make this level of investment worthwhile.
I really like the idea of having a new airport for international connections like this and Western Sydney Airport. I doubt a connection in Poland will ever be a good choice given where I tend to fly. But, I’d gladly transit through WSI rather than the existing airports (though MEL and ADL are good) simply because (I suspect) the design for connecting pax has been thought through in clean-sheet designs. (WSI has no international traffic planned other than trans-Tasman to my knowledge.)
Amsterdam USED to be a fantastic connection center, but then ran into logistical issues, problems with the government capping flights, not being able to deal with weather problems well, etc. Now it has intense overcrowding. Plus, Schiphol has an ‘attitude’ problem with customer service and being service-oriented in general. The idea of a mega-hub in Poland makes sense for a couple of reasons. First, the Polish want it (that’s a huge plus). They are ambitious and typically have an attitude doing what it takes to expand (rather than contract) business opportunities, and they seem to be more service-oriented toward customer. Second, as more and more Eastern European countries have become (or will become) more mainstream tourist areas for Americans and other countries to visit – the location (compared to Schiphol, Heathrow, CDG, etc) becomes more central and convenient to connect for ALL of Europe. Not to mention you could do a stopover in Poland, which is a fantastic country to tour. I hope this happens!
Maybe, Poland doesn’t want to be noticed, because, historically, every time its neighbors ‘noticed’ it…
There is something accurate in what you say. But doing things slowly, is not only a better way not to attract attention smart but also practical. No hurry.
Great haste makes great waste!
Yup. Build better not faster
Some would even say… build back better… 😉
Lucky Warsaw, lucky Lodz!
It is worth adding that Poland boasts the fastest-growing economy in the EU. Its current main hub, WAW, is landlocked and congested. Port Polska is not merely intended to alleviate air traffic congestion; it is an assertion of economic sovereignty, designed to carry a significant portion of Europe’s east-west and north-south air freight and passenger traffic directly through Poland, bypassing Western European hubs. Furthermore, it has been designated as a dual-use infrastructure to support NATO logistics and military readiness in the region.
Port Polska is not just an infrastructure project, but above all a large-scale financial and organizational undertaking. Its success will depend largely on two factors: the continued financial stability of WAW and the confidence of the banks, which are expected to provide the billions needed in the coming years. It should be added that in 2032, the first passengers are expected to use Port Polska, along with the first section of the high-speed rail line on the route Warsaw – Port Polska – Lodz.
Kyle, you’ve gotta stop with these AI heavy-written posts on the weekend. There’s slop and obvious indicators that this was a pretty simple prompt that you added some local language to (Yours and Matthew’s trips). Two years ago your posts were much more thought out and researched, this is just slop. Btw, anyone keyed into the industry knows about this project, and it’s been covered in way better ways on Skift, B1 and others.
The question is where are most the people connecting to/from over the traditional hubs. If it’s say US to popular European destinations in the Central and Western Med and Western Europe then flying all the way over to Poland to back track on yourself isn’t going to make much sense. I suspect the connecting market to Scandinavia and far east of Europe is much smaller. While the conflict in Ukraine continues then any routes east are going to require a massive detour. Maybe it’ll be over by the time that’s complete, then the question is going to be do people want to fly to Asia on LOT or an Asian carrier…