ANALYSIS: Military Cargo Flights to NATO’s Rzeszów Poland Hub Are Spiking

Military freight arrivals at the NATO-Ukraine key air logistics hub Rzeszów Poland have shot up, led by 130-ton cargo capacity US Air Force (USAF) contracted 747 jumbo jets landing more than daily, and beefed up by air cargo planes from a half dozen other air forces.

Kyiv Post review of open-source flight tracking platforms, and aircraft arrival/departured information for the airport at Rzeszów, NATO’s main air logistics hub in eastern Poland, found that military heavy cargo aircraft traffic from April 24 to May 1 had nearly doubled compared to military cargo plane flight volumes typical there in recent months.

The spike in military freight plane activity seemed not to be linked to the Wednesday signing of a US-Ukrainian mineral development deal, whose completion the White House had said was a pre-condition for the resumption of US military supply shipments to Ukraine.

A Thursday announcement that the US had lifted its hold on the sales of US military aid to Ukraine seemed, by the volume flights arriving before and after the announcement, did not appear to be directly connected with the Trump administration decision, based on arrival counts and aircraft types.

Though more than usual, on average three or four verified or highly likely military cargo flights have been observed arriving daily at Rzeszów over the past seven days, but were landing at a pace about half the intensity of military air freight operations seen at Rzeszów in late April 2024, when the US ended a five-month embargo on military aid to Ukraine and Washington planners scrambled to fill critical ammunition and weapons shortages faced by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

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Cargo type delivered during the April 24 to May 1 window was not made public and it was not possible to confirm whether the freight missions flown were specifically for AFU use.

However, the types of aircraft flying in to Rzeszów and the origins of their flights over that seven-day period was consistent and at times nearly identical with cargo flight patterns visible at Rzeszów during the US-led April 2024 surge.

As in 2024, USAF chartered 747 cargo jets were the backbone of the increased flight deliveries to Rzeszów. Configurations vary but most cargo 747s are rated to transport 120-130 tons of freight.

A USAF Air Mobility Command (AMC) flight departing Charleston SC was the first heavy cargo plane observed in the past week, landing in Rzeszów on April 24. The operator was Kalitta Air, a longtime contractor operating cargo 747s for the US government worldwide.

NOTE: Some open source flight tracking platforms incorrectly call the USAF’s Air Mobility Command, the main personnel and material transportation agency within the USAF, the “US Transportation Command.” For this article that’s been named correctly “Air Mobility Command,” or AMC.

Two Kalitta 747s landed at Rzeszów on April 30. The first flew 7,600 kilometers to the Polish base from the US city of Anchorage, Alaska with the airfield there serving as the Anchorage and Elmandorf AFB. The second, landing later in the day, arrived from South Carolina via Gander Canada, a long-used refueling point for aircraft east-bound across the Atlantic.

Aside from Kalitta Air, the US ATC contracted with another longtime charter company, called Atlas Air, to fly a cargo 747 from Dover Delaware to Rzeszów on May 1.

There were two more cargo 747s flying for the USAF whose charter company was not publicly identified: an AMC 747 departing Chicago and landed at Rzeszów on April 28, and a military charter 747 with call sign Duke28 that flew from Fort Belvoir Virginia to land on April 29.

As this article was being prepared another Kalitta Air 747 was shown on open-source flight trackers to be en route to Rzeszów, from Dover Delaware. Taken together, the pace of US Air Force-contracted 747s over the past week was one a day, more than double arrival rates recording on flight tracking open source platforms in February and March.

Not all military cargo flights arriving in Rzeszów in the past week were officially recorded. US social media on Tuesday, followed by confirmed reports in conventional media, identified a Ukrainian Antonov Air Lines An-124-100 super heavy lift plane that delivered three F-16 fight jet air frames to Rzeszów on April 26.

Aside from US government charters, NATO nation military cargo flights were observed daily over the past week as well. In a few cases a plane’s arrival was not recorded in open source tracking systems but its departure was. On May 1, a pair of German Luftwaffe A-400 cargo planes lifted off from Rzeszów en route to Cologne.

The A-400 manufacturer Airbus rates an A-400’s maximum capacity at about 37 tons. It was not clear where the A-400s had flown to Rzeszów from or their mission, however, historically the main task of NATO cargo planes flying to that airport has been to deliver materials and men to support NATO operations in east Poland, and to deliver arms and other military support to Ukraine.

Other air activity was precisely confirmed. Canadian Air Force C-130 turboprop military transport pilots appeared to be the busiest NATO airmen confirmed to have flown into Rzeszów over the week having arrived there Zagreb, per airport records, on April 25 and April 26, 27 and 28.

A Royal Air Force A-400 arrived in Rzeszów from Brize Norton military airfield on April 27. An unidentified RAF aircraft with a non-combat call sign paralleled that flight and landed at the same time.

A Spanish Air Force A332 flew to Rzeszów on April 28th from Madrid, spent less than four hours on the ground, and then returned to Spain. A Belgian Air Force A400 military heavy cargo plane landed on April 29, and another one operated by 15th Air Transport Wing landed on the 30th. An Italian Air Force light cargo/people hauler plane (Alenia C-27J) flew to Rzeszów on the 30th, from Pisa.

Taken together with the USAF contract 747 cargo flights, the total sum of potential military air cargo aircraft landing in Rzeszów over the week was between three or four planes a day, or about half of the pace during the emergency air supply surge seen in April 2024, Kyiv Post researchers found.

Aside from cargo missions, Kyiv Post identified multiple flights landing at Rzeszów that were military in nature but almost certainly not involving cargo deliveries, including a landing by an RAF Rivet Joint long-range reconnaissance jet and flying tanker (April 28), probable NATO military passenger transportation runs to and from Britain, Sweden and Germany; and Polish domestic military personnel flights.

All the military landings were, as a total of all air activity, a minority amid regular, year-round traffic from European destinations like Berlin, London and Copenhagen, and seasonal resort traffic to Morocco, Egypt and Croatia. In a typical 24-hour operational day Rzeszów airport sees 30-40 landings by aircraft of all types.