Despite its longevity, it was not the capital’s first airport, which was established in 1910 at Pole Mokotowskie, just south of the center.
However, the idea of building a larger airport surfaced shortly after Poland regained its independence. Consequently, in 1924, the authorities bought
460 hectares of land in the Okęcie neighborhood.
On April 29, 1934, the airport’s grand opening took place. In 1939, Okęcie was home to the headquarters of the 1st Aviation Regiment, the command of the Air Base, and the airport named after Marshal Józef Piłsudski.
The Warsaw airport was one of the first targets of Luftwaffe air raids on the first day of the war. More than a dozen bombs fell in its area, hitting hangars, railroad tracks, and buildings.
On January 16 and 17, 1945, German troops retreating from Warsaw blew up some of the buildings and elements of the airport's infrastructure. A few weeks later, reconstruction of the airport began.
By 1947, a makeshift station building with a control tower, a concrete runway and apron, hangars, and technical base facilities had been built. By the end of the 1940s, regular flights were launched to the capitals of the so-called People's Democracy countries: Belgrade, Moscow, Bucharest, and Prague, among others.
The Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, who once lived in Warsaw, inspired the renaming of the airport in 2001. However, despite the formal alteration, the term ‘Okęcie’ or
‘Lotnisko Okęcie’ continues to be widely used both in popular discourse and within the aviation industry.
