Construction of railway station at Prague's Václav Havel Airport gets green light

The Railway Administration (SŽ) has greenlighted the construction of a new railway station at Prague’s Václav Havel Airport as part of plans to build a direct rail line from Czechia’s biggest airport to the capital’s city center and the Central Bohemian town of Kladno.

The organization has previously stated that the modernization of the airport train line should be completed by 2029 or 2030, with an estimated cost of CZK 50 billion.

The line will connect the airport with Prague’s main station Hlavní nádraží, Masarykovo nádraží, as well as the Prague-Bubny station in Prague 7, which is currently under development. According to the SŽ, it will rebuild three sections between Prague 7 and the airport from 2026.

"This new [Prague Airport] railway station is a crucial element of the project to modernize the railway from Prague to Kladno, which consists of approximately 10 new buildings. Some are complete, and others are currently under construction," said SŽ director Jiří Svoboda.

Last year, the SŽ launched a tender for the modernization of the Prague Airport-Kladno line between Prague-Ruzyně and Kladno. The new station will be called Dlouhá Míle and include a parking lot.

In recent years, the SŽ has made significant progress in improving the city’s railway infrastructure, with the reconstruction of the Negrelli Viaduct in Karlín (that goes over Štvanice island) from 2017 to 2020. The viaduct will connect to the Prague-Bubny station once the latter is ready. Furthermore, the SŽ will also redevelop and modernize Masarykovo nádraží.

The rail line will also connect Prague Airport with Nádraží Veleslavín in Prague 6; the SŽ will redevelop the metro station to ensure it holds a larger capacity of people by repositioning the tracks and platform.

The new station and line “will significantly improve travel comfort and reduce the traffic load in the area,” remarked Svoboda. The new Prague Airport-city center rail connection will ultimately speed up travel times into the heart of the capital by an estimated 25 minutes on average.