Warsaw's inadequate airport

"On bihaf ow LOT Połlysz Erlajnz, aj łud lajk tu łelkam ju tu Fryderyk Szopę Internaszonal Erport. Lokal tajm iz tłenty tu ten..." Sorry - Fryderyk Szopę what? No one - and I mean no one - calls Okęcie Airport by this name, despite it being now nearly seven years since it was ceremoniously renamed. Freddy Fright-Wig International it most certainly is not. Taxi drivers, local newspapers, employees or residents of the surrounding areas are all unanimous in sticking to the airport's old name, which dates back to before the second world war. Another case of Rondo Babka syndrome*.

The picture above, taken on my arrival in Warsaw last night, shows two buses waiting to take passengers to the terminal. The buses take us to arrivals in Terminal One for passport checks, then we walk through to Terminal Two, to pick up our baggage. Terminal Two is still unfinished, nearly two years after it was meant to have been completed (latest deadline - March 2008). Taxi drivers hate picking up passengers from the new terminal, as over-zealous police officers keep moving them on.

Since we moved to this part of Warsaw ten years ago, passenger numbers flying from Okęcie have trebled (from over three million to just over nine million), yet there's still only one road, ul. Żwirki i Wigury that leads in and out of the airport. And the same two bus routes that ever linked Warsaw to the airport - the 175 and 188 (and one night bus). A second road from the airport to Ursynów is being built; this awaits completion of the viaduct over the railway line and the widening of ul. Poloneza. This project is now three months overdue and counting. And Okęcie must be the only airport in the civilised world that cannot be accessed by rail (underground, main line or tram).

* Roundabout in northern Warsaw, officially renamed "Rondo Zgrupowania Armii Krajowej 'Radosław' ", universally still known by its old name, "Rondo Babka". While renaming streets once named after communist traitors was popular back in the 1990s, change for change's sake in the 21st century is a different issue.