Introduction

Warsaw Chopin Airport (EPWA) serves the Warsaw Metropolitan Area with a yearly average of 18.5 million passengers, roughly 40% of the country's total air passenger traffic, making it the busiest airport in Poland.

Urban development in the mid-1920s led to air traffic complications around Warsaw's former aerodrome, leading to the need to build a new airport elsewhere. A decade later, a new airport was finally ready to roll, built near the village of Okecie. It featured a ticket office, customs post, police station, newspaper kiosk, restaurant, and viewing terrace—state-of-the-art infrastructure for early 1930 standards. 

After the civilian infrastructure was considered ready, they began developing its military potential by constructing a Polish Air Force base, an Institute of Aviation building, an aircraft-building plant, and other military-related structures.

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In the late 1930s, the airport was equipped with radio navigation equipment to aid pilots during low-visibility conditions.

World War 2 wholly destroyed the airport, which happened to be a battleground between the Germans and the Polish Resistance. It was a bombing target from day one and was occupied by the Luftwaffe as soon as Germany took the country over. 

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The Germans built their first concrete runways and taxiways, which remained undamaged until the final days of the war when they were deliberately destroyed to prevent the enemies from using them.

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After the war, LOT Polish Airlines resumed operations at what used to be the airport, kicking off the reconstruction efforts. In two years, they have built a new terminal, a new control tower, and many aircraft parking stands, making it ready to serve people again.

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The airport's terminal was reconstructed between 1964 and 1969 after LOT transferred its maintenance rights to the state administration. By 1970, it had already hit the one millionth passenger mark. This made them realize that their new terminal was already too small, leading to the construction of a temporary arrival hall, and a pre-war structure was used for domestic operations.

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While passenger numbers slightly declined in the early 1980s, the mid-80s and beyond were the opposite, with the administration urging further expansion of the airport.

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The expansion plans from the late 1980s only started after the fall of communism in the early 1990s. The new terminal was finally brought to life at the cost of 300 million German marks, using 164 subcontractors and 24 months of work. With a maximum capacity of 3.5 million passengers, it could handle 3.5 more people than the previous terminal, which was more than enough at the time.

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A new terminal (North Hall) was built in 2008, featuring a considerably larger footprint. It now handles arrivals for Star Alliance and Oneworld Airlines.

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It's a hub for LOT Polish Airlines and a focus city for Enter Air, Smartwings Poland, SprintAir, and Wizz Air. Aegean Airlines, Air China, Air France, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Finnair, flydubai, KLM, Lufthansa, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Qatar Airways, TAP Air Portugal, and Turkish Airlines also serve it.

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The scenery claims to feature custom ground textures, PBR materials, performance-friendly optimization, custom jetways, custom ground service equipment, custom landside buildings, an up-to-date ground layout, and more.

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Installation

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The scenery is distributed via OrbxDirect and features a one-click install and options configurator.

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First Impressions

The maiden flight of choice to check out Drzewiecki Design's Warsaw Chopin Airport was EK179, a five-hour-long Emirates 77W hop from Dubai. It took off early in the morning and arrived around noon, which is ideal for screenshot-taking purposes (if the weather helps). The weather gods have been relatively kind recently (as far as my sim flights are concerned only, sadly. Not so much in real life), so I'm relying on that.

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There is a reason why I picked that exact flight: first and foremost, I'm pretty fond of flying the 777-300ER, but that's not all. When I got the aircraft add-on for the first time, I went straight into flightradar24 to find a route, and that one caught my eye as it was one of the first of the day. But then I remembered I didn't have a Warsaw scenery yet. 

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The flight went on without a hitch. Tailwinds were not as helpful as I'd have hoped, but that's a nonissue in the grand scheme of things. The descent started when the clock was nearing the five-hour mark, just as predicted by SimBrief. 

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The approach and landing were within expectations: not overly windy or anything, and with a lot of payload, making for a stable arrival into Warsaw's runway 11. After a brief float (I can't do that much there, after all), EK179 was finally down in Warsaw. This was my first time touching down in Poland's busiest airport since at least 2021 or 2022!

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The stand I wanted to take didn't show up on GSX, and then I realized why once I got there: It was sandwiched between an Emirates 77X (did I time travel?) and a LOT 789, meaning there would be no way to fit in there without denting a wing or two. I had to settle for one of the smaller stands meant for smaller aircraft. Nothing that I can't fix later on by disabling static aircraft, right?

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The first impressions—aside from the unexpected sandwich, which isn't exactly a defect—were pretty good: the ground textures looked nice, and the very modern and transparent terminal looked great. It was a very solid airside experience at first glance, for sure.

Modeling / Texturing

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In the usual fashion for Drzewiecki Design, the models and textures are pretty neat, providing a very accurate rendition of the main passenger terminal, hangars, buildings, and landside stuff. 

The amount of detail is quite stunning, regardless of where you look: custom ground clutter scattered everywhere, custom ground service equipment, and plenty of static airplanes everywhere with something always going on (maintenance, passengers deboarding or boarding, cargo being loaded in or out). It's not animated, but it sure makes for interesting screenshots.

The interior work is commendable, packing in a lot of detail, with many booths, check-in counters, rows and rows of 3D passengers either seated or standing, and duty-free shops. I have never been there myself in real life, yet I feel like it's almost as if I have been there at this point. It is all in there. I'm sure I won't get lost in Warsaw if I ever find myself there someday.

The textures are great, but you might find the LOD optimization to be a bit aggressive sometimes, depending on your object detail settings, leading to blurriness on certain objects (like the Samsung Galaxy S24 ads on the stands), which gets a bit pixelated, and so does the VISA ad on the tower. It's not too noticeable elsewhere, other than inside (the passengers can look a bit creepy sometimes). At the end of the day, if that's the price to pay for fluidity, so be it.

The ground markings are spot-on compared to current satellite imagery, making them suitable for online ventures. More so, it is almost ideal because, as of version 1.0, you can not disable static aircraft yet, and doing it yourself (manually) makes the otherwise occupied jetways disappear (and you still can't pick the parking spot in MSFS). The developers are going to implement that in version 1.1, so that won't be a problem soon. 

The runways feature a custom elevation profile, making them not entirely flat. For example, the touchdown zone around runway 29 feels way bumpier than the other end. Thankfully, it's nothing major to the point of affecting your landing rate (which is the price we have to pay sometimes for ultimate realism). The custom-made rubber marks on the landing areas look pretty good, if I may add.

The attention to detail on the landside aspect is quite noticeable, and landing/take-off screenshots can look a tad bit closer to the real thing with somewhat matching backgrounds (same buildings, etc.). It's an often overlooked part that makes a massive difference if taking realistic screenshots is your cup of tea. Other than that, of course, it's more of a nice-to-have than anything. 

Overall, the models do not disappoint. If anything, a slightly less aggressive LODding would look even better if it doesn't impact performance too much. Other than that, it's the best Warsaw Chopin Airport for Microsoft Flight Simulator yet. 

Night Lighting

The nocturnal illumination is very natural, which is highly important given the see-through nature of Warsaw's terminal. If it were too bright, it would look off, and if it were too dim, it would also look off. It's pretty good as is. 

The lighting work around the remote stands, cargo stands, and hangars does not disappoint either. While not exactly extraordinary, it sure gets the job done well enough.

The taxiway and runway lights are okay, so that won't count as an excuse if you ever find yourself lost around the airport at night. Not that it's an easy feat considering the airport's rather humble dimensions compared to certain European behemoths.

All in all, Warsaw – literally – shines when the sun bids farewell.

Performance 

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My Setup: 32 GB RAM DDR4, Ryzen 7 3700X, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB, 2 TB SSD (non-NVMe)

While the framerate doesn't hover around much on approach, the experience changes for the worse once you vacate and waddle toward the terminal, where it gets underwhelming at times despite the optimization techniques and everything. 

Granted, that's with everything enabled. If you get rid of the 3D passengers, for example, the frame rate gets right back into normal territory. The full experience, though, is definitely within demanding territory. But then again, it's far from unplayable, even with all the bells and whistles enabled. It's just a noticeable hit, but well within playable territory. 

It's a good thing we have the flexibility to disable certain features, though. Otherwise, people with weaker hardware would have a tough time running this one. 

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Conclusion

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For roughly $24.13, it's definitely on the steep end of things, but it's justified by just how much detail it packs in overall, whether airside or landside. The interior work is well within the current industry standard, featuring every nook and cranny of the actual airport (granted, it's a flight simulator, not a passenger simulator, but it's nice to have when it doesn't compromise the experience like it would in a massive airport terminal, for example). It might be DD's best interior work yet.

It's definitely a must-have for anyone wishing to fly LOT Polish Airlines (it's their hub, after all), and there are many sub-two-hour routes from main European carriers like British Airways, Lufthansa, and KLM. There are plenty of options to get properly busy, I'd say.

As mentioned before, though, it has flaws, even if one of them is mostly temporary (not being able to turn static aircraft off). The LOD optimization can be a bit aggressive sometimes, leading to blurry advertisements, among other things. The performance is underwhelming with everything enabled, but still within playability range.

A  huge thank you to Drzewiecki Design for providing us with a review copy!

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