Warsaw WAW passed 20 million passengers in 2024; LOT Polish has over half of seats; 155+ destinations
WAW is one of 15 Polish airports with commercial flights. It is the country’s main airport and welcomed a record 21.28 million passengers in 2024, the first time traffic exceeded 20 million. Passenger volume was 13% above the prior record held in the pre-pandemic 2019.
The growth was mainly due to Ryanair’s return. While Cirium shows it previously served WAW between 2007 and 2018, it returned in 2023 and is now the fourth-largest operator. It continues to serve Warsaw WMI, which is much farther from the centre. Wizz Air has also doubled in size, cementing its second-place position.
WAW also benefited from the arrival of multiple carriers. They include Air Arabia and Ethiopian in 2024, Pegasus, PLAY and Plus Ultra in 2023, and flydubai in 2021. Of course, other airlines have pulled out. Ignoring war-related cuts, they include Air Canada in 2019 and airBaltic, Alitalia (which has since ceased to exist) and easyJet in 2020.
LOT Polish has over half of the available seats
WAW will gain various airlines in 2025, including Etihad from Abu Dhabi on 3 June (4-weekly) and Eurowings from Düsseldorf on 2 May (5-weekly).
Using Cirium schedules data to compare WAW’s top 10 airlines in the first half of 2025 with the same period in 2019 shows that Aeroflot, Emirates and easyJet are no longer included (only Emirates continues to serve the airport). In their place are Ryanair, British Airways, and Austrian.
LOT Polish has 52% of WAW’s one-way seats and is more than double the size of Wizz Air. LOT Polish has 87 routes in 51 countries in these six months. They include multiple recent additions, whether they have started yet or not:
- 17 June 2025: Thessaloniki (daily)
- 13 May 2025: Beirut (4-weekly)
- 19 April 2025: Malta (4-weekly)
- 12 April 2025: Keflavik (4-weekly)
- 3 February 2025: Lisbon (5-weekly)
- 1 December 2024: Innsbruck (weekly)
- 27 November 2024: Tenerife TFS (3-weekly)
- 28 October 2024: Larnaca (4-weekly to 6-weekly)
- 30 September 2024: Lyon (6-weekly)
- 4 June 2024: Riyadh (3-weekly)
- 3 June 2024: Oradea (4-weekly)
- 13 March 2024: Tashkent (3-weekly)
Flights to 155+ airports globally
WAW will have flights to more than 155 airports in the examined period, with the top 10 shown below. Compared to the first half of 2019, Brussels BRU, Copenhagen, Dubai and Rome FCO are now included, replacing Krakow, London LTN, Moscow SVO and Munich.
Amsterdam has more one-way seats than anywhere else. It has risen three places compared to 2019, overtaking Frankfurt FRA and Paris CDG. In March, there are 56-weekly flights by LOT Polish (28) and KLM (28).
40+ destinations have been gained
Comparing the first six months of 2025 to 2019 shows that WAW has gained more than 40 destinations, with a selection shown on the map. They include long-haul markets. For example, LOT Polish inaugurated Delhi flights in September 2019 (it returned in March 2022) and Mumbai in May 2022.
