News / Poland wary of China ecommerce as it eyes role as Europe’s new cargo hub

Photo: @ Port Polska

Poland’s ambition to build one of Europe’s newest air cargo gateways comes with an unusual caveat: it is not prepared to chase Chinese ecommerce traffic at any cost.

As work progresses on the country’s planned transportation hub, developers believe the project could capitalise on mounting capacity constraints at Europe’s established cargo hubs – but they are also wary of building growth around Chinese airlines while European carriers remain locked-out of Russian airspace.

“Budapest is basically doing business on ecommerce from China,” Cetralny Port Komunikacyjny CEO Filip Czernicki told The Loadstar. “That’s kind of a tricky part of the market that we don’t know if we really want to catch.”

Unlike Hungary, Poland has a national airline with long-haul cargo ambitions. Dr Czernicki said China’s continued ability to overfly Russia gave its airlines a structural cost advantage over European rivals such as LOT Polish Airlines.

“We have our national home carrier, LOT Polish Airlines,” he said. “It is facing uncompetitive behaviour of Chinese airlines, because they are allowed to fly over Russia, and we aren’t.

“We would prefer LOT to have a chance to grow, and grow the cargo business.”

The comments offer a rare insight into the balancing act facing governments investing in major aviation infrastructure: maximising airport traffic while also protecting the competitiveness of their national carriers.

Nevertheless, Dr Czernicki believes the wider opportunity for Poland lies beyond ecommerce alone.

The country’s new, and as yet unnamed airport, developed under the Port Polska investment programme, around 37km west of Warsaw, is intended to replace the increasingly constrained Chopin Airport, to become the centrepiece of a wider logistics strategy combining aviation, high-speed rail, and road connections.

“The main reason we are doing it is because Chopin Airport is congested, and there is no space for further growth,” he confirmed. And night-flight restrictions and limited parking for freighters have constrained cargo growth, he added, making a new airport essential if Poland is to expand its role in European logistics.

The first phase of Poland’s new airport is designed to handle between 34m and 44m passengers annually, with room to expand to around 50m before a third runway is required. Cargo throughput is expected to rise from around 146,000 tonnes, currently handled at Chopin, to some 450,000 tonnes when the new hub opens.

But Dr Czernicki says the project is about more than replacing Warsaw’s existing airport. He argues that many of Europe’s established gateways have little room left to grow.

“We want to make use of this greenfield investment,” he said. “We have secured the space for growth.”

He pointed to airports such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Paris, where expansion has become increasingly constrained, while Centralny Port Komunikacyjny has already ringfenced land for additional runways, cargo facilities, and logistics parks.

The airport also forms part of a much broader state-backed infrastructure programme that includes around 500km of new high-speed rail, integrated motorway links, and commercial development around the airport site.

Combined with Poland’s rapidly expanding warehousing sector, growing intermodal network, and central European location, the project is intended to strengthen the country’s position as a logistics gateway between eastern and western Europe.

Poland is also expected to play an important role in reconnecting Ukraine with the rest of Europe once the war ends, with LOT keen to restore links to Ukrainian cities, and Warsaw again acting as a transfer hub for passengers and freight moving west.

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