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Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport is only the eighth busiest airport in Poland, serving approximately 730,000 people in 2022. For example, New York’s JFK International Airport served four million people in January alone.
Ukraine has been a no-fly zone since the beginning of the war. It is for this reason that the location of the Rzeszów-Jasionka airport has made it one of the most important strategic points for NATO since the beginning of the war.
The airport has become a center for heavy weapons, international aid, as well as a stopover for such prominent people as US President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and others. The everyday life of this airport is quite unusual, because the civilian sector also continues to work – ordinary people travel next to missiles, soldiers, refugees and medical evacuation teams.
The first airborne troops arrived at the airport on February 5, 2022, about 1,700 troops in total, to increase security as Russia had concentrated its troops near the Polish border.
The manager of the airport said that the employees only slept for a few hours because the work had to be restructured. “It was necessary to organize everything necessary for military needs, while also ensuring the regular flow of passengers.”
In March 2022, the United States delivered two “Patriot” anti-aircraft missile launchers to the airport to provide security for Poland.
The airport has played a vital role for medical evacuation teams from Ukraine. Ukrainian soldiers wounded in the war are taken to this airport before they are taken onward to other countries for treatment.
