LOT Polish Airlines

LOT Polish Airlines, legally incorporated as Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT S.A. (Polish pronunciation: [lɔt], flight), is the flag carrier of Poland. A founding member of IATA, it remains one of the world's oldest airlines in operation. With a fleet of 80 aircraft as of August 2024, LOT Polish Airlines is the 18th largest operator in Europe, serving 105 domestic and international destinations across Europe, Asia and North America. The airline was founded on 29 December 1928 by the Polish government during the Second Polish Republic as a self-governing limited liability corporation, taking over existing domestic airlines Aerolot (founded in 1922) and Aero (founded in 1925), and began operations on 1 January 1929.
During the 1930s, LOT expanded its domestic and international routes, leading to a network spanning over 10,250 km by 1939. It also expanded its fleet, acquiring Douglas DC-2 and Lockheed Electra and various other aircraft. The airline moved its operations to the new Warsaw Okęcie Airport in 1934. However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 led to the suspension of services and evacuation of most of LOT's aircraft. Post-war, LOT was reestablished in 1945 as a state enterprise, primarily operating Soviet-built aircraft due to Poland becoming a Soviet satellite state in 1948. Resuming both domestic and international flights, LOT operated a fleet consisting of Ilyushin Il-18, Ilyushin Il-62, Tupolev Tu-134, and Antonov An-24, among others, serving routes across Europe, the Middle East, and eventually launching transatlantic flights to North America in the early 1970s.
In the post-1989 era, following the fall of communism in Poland, LOT transitioned to Western aircraft, including the acquisition of Boeing 767 for long-haul routes. The airline joined the Star Alliance in 2003. In 2012, LOT became the first European operator of Boeing 787 Dreamliner. In recent years, the airline faced a failed privatization attempt and a temporary suspension of operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the destinations originate from its hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport. Since 2018, LOT has maintained one long-haul route from Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport in Hungary where it operates regularly scheduled flights to Seoul all year round. The route is scheduled to end on 26 March 2025.
When the airline was founded in 1928, Poland's State Treasury had 86% of the shares in the line, with the rest belonging to the Province of Silesia and the city of Poznań. At the beginning of the 1930s, in addition to existing services from Warsaw to Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk and Lwów, new service to Bydgoszcz and Katowice was introduced. In 1932, LOT began flying to Wilno. It was also at this point, in 1931, that LOT's well-renowned logo, the "Flying Crane" (designed by a visual artist from Warsaw, Tadeusz Gronowski, and still in use today) was picked as the winning entry of the airline's logo design competition.
In the same year, the company's first multi-segment international flight along the route Warsaw – Lwów – Czerniowce – Bucharest was launched. In next years there followed services to Berlin, Athens, Helsinki, Budapest, including some waypoints. By 1939 the lines were extended to Beirut, Rome, Copenhagen, reaching 10,250 km (6,370 mi) of routes. The Douglas DC-2, Lockheed Model 10A Electra and Model 14H Super Electra joined the fleet in 1935, 1936 and 1938 respectively (During this period, LOT had 10 Lockheed 10, 10 Lockheed 14, 3 DC-2 and 1 Ju 52/3mge). Several Polish aircraft designs were tested, but only the single-engined PWS-24 airliner was acquired in any number. In 1934, after five years of operating under the LOT name, the airline received new head offices, technical facilities, hangars, workshops, and warehouses located at the new, modern Warsaw Okęcie Airport. This constituted a move from the airline's previous base at Pole Mokotowskie, as this airport had become impossible to operate safely due it gradually becoming absorbed into Warsaw's outlying urban and residential areas.
In 1938, LOT changed its name, following the Polish spelling reform of that year from Polskie Linje Lotnicze 'LOT' to Polskie Linie Lotnicze 'LOT'. That same year, a well-publicised transatlantic test flight from Los Angeles via Buenos Aires, Natal, Dakar to Warsaw, aimed at judging the feasibility of introducing passenger service on the Poland-United States route, was successfully executed. There were plans to open services to London and Moscow, and even transatlantic service in 1940. The airline had carried 218,000 passengers before the services were suspended after the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939 and during the following German occupation of Poland; most of LOT's aircraft were evacuated to Romania, two to Baltic states, and three L-14H to Great Britain. In 1939 there were 697 employees, including 25 pilots, most of which were evacuated along with the planes. 13 airliners that got to Romania were seized by the Romanian government. For the duration of the Second World War, the airline suspended operations.
After the Soviet occupation of Poland, from August 1944 until December 1945 the Polish Air Force maintained basic transport in the country; from March 1945 there were regular routes maintained by Civil Aviation Department of the Air Force. On 10 March 1945 the Polish government recreated the LOT airline, as a state-owned enterprise (Przedsiębiorstwo Państwowe Polskie Linie Lotnicze 'LOT'), which would mainly fly Soviet-built aircraft, owing to the tensions of the Cold War and Poland being a member of the Warsaw Pact. In 1946, seven years after service was first suspended, the airline restarted its operations after receiving ten Soviet-built ex-Air Force Lisunov Li-2Ts, then further passenger Li-2Ps and nine Douglas C-47s. Both domestic and international services restarted that year, first to Berlin, Paris, Stockholm and Prague. In 1947 there were added routes to Bucharest, Budapest, Belgrad and Copenhagen. Five modern, although troublesome SE.161 Languedoc joined the fleet for a short period in 1947–1948, followed by five Ilyushin Il-12B in 1949; 13–20 Ilyushin Il-14s then followed in 1955–1957. After the end of Stalinism in Poland, few Western aircraft would be acquired; five Convair 240s in 1957 and three Vickers Viscounts in 1962 proved to be the last until the 1990s. After that, the composition of the airline's fleet shifted exclusively to Soviet-produced aircraft. Only in 1955 LOT inaugurated services to Moscow, being the centre of the Marxist–Leninist world, and to Vienna. Services to London and Zürich were not re-established until 1958, and to Rome until 1960.
Nine Ilyushin Il-18 turboprop airliners were introduced in June 1961, leading to the establishment of routes to Africa and the Middle East, and in 1963 LOT expanded its routes to serve Cairo. In the 1970s there were added lines to Baghdad, Beirut, Benghazi, Damascus and Tunis. The Antonov An-24 was delivered from April 1966 (20 used, on domestic routes), followed by the first jet airliners Tupolev Tu-134 in November 1968 (which coincided with the opening of a new international terminal at Warsaw's Okęcie Airport). The Tu-134s were operated on European routes. The Ilyushin Il-62 long-range jet airliner inaugurate the first transatlantic routes in the history of Polish air transport to Toronto in 1972 as a charter flight and a regular flight to New York City in 1973. LOT began service on its first Far East destination – Bangkok via Dubai and Bombay in 1977.
In 1977 the airline's current livery (despite occasional changes, notably in corporate typography) designed by Roman Duszek and Andrzej Zbrożek, with the large 'LOT' inscription in blue on the front fuselage, and a blue tailplane was introduced, the 1929-designed Tadeusz Gronowski logo, however, despite many changes in livery, was kept through the years, and to this day remains the same.
In the autumn of 1981, commercial air traffic in Poland neared collapse in the wake of the communist government's crackdown on dissenters in the country after the rise of the banned 'trade union' dissident Solidarity movement, and some Western airlines suspended their flights to Warsaw. With 13 December declaration of Martial Law that same year, all LOT connections were suspended. Charter flights to New York and Chicago resumed only in 1984, and eventually, regular flight connections were restored on 28 April 1985. Tupolev Tu-154 mid-range airliners were acquired, after the withdrawal of Il-18 and Tu-134 aircraft from LOT's fleet in the 1980s, and were deployed successively on most European and Middle East routes. In 1986 transatlantic charter flights also reached Detroit and Los Angeles.
After the fall of the communist system in Poland in 1989 the fleet shifted back to Western aircraft, beginning with acquisitions of the Boeing 767-200 in April 1989, followed by the Boeing 767-300 in March 1990, ATR 72 in August 1991, Boeing 737-500 in December 1992 and finally the Boeing 737-400 in April 1993. From the mid-1980s to early 1990s LOT flew from Warsaw to Chicago, Edmonton, Montreal, Newark, New York City and Toronto. These routes were primarily inaugurated to serve the large Polish communities (Polonia) in North America.
LOT was among the first Central European airlines to operate American aircraft when the Boeing 767 was introduced; the 767s were used to operate LOT's longest-ever connection, to Singapore. By the end of 1989 LOT had hosted that year's IATA congress and reached a milestone annual load-factor of 2.3 million passengers carried over the year.
In 1990 LOT's third Boeing 767-300 landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport and not long after Boeing 737 and ATR 72 aircraft were acquired for use on LOT's expanded route network, which began to include new international destinations such as Kyiv, Lviv, Minsk and Vilnius. In 1993, LOT began to expand its Western-European operations, inaugurating, in quick succession, flights to Oslo, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf; operations at Poland's other regional airports outside Warsaw were also duly expanded around this time.
In 1994 the airline signed a codesharing agreement with American Airlines on flights to and from Warsaw as well as onward flights in the United States and Poland operated by both companies; flights to Thessaloniki, Zagreb and Nice were inaugurated, and according to an IATA report, in this year LOT had the youngest fleet of any airline in the world. After years of planning, in 1997 LOT set up a sister airline, EuroLOT, which, essentially operating as its parent airline's regional subsidiary, took over domestic flights. The airline was developed with the hope that it would increase transit passenger-flow through Warsaw's Chopin Airport, whilst at the same time providing capacity on routes with smaller load factors and play a part in developing LOT's reputation as the largest transit airline in Central and Eastern Europe. By 1999 LOT had purchased a number of small Embraer 145 regional jets in order to expand its short-haul fleet, and had, with the approval of the Minister of the State Treasury, begun a process of selling shares to the Swiss company SAirGroup Holding; this then led to the airline's incorporation into the then-nascent Qualiflyer Group.
Expansion of LOT's route network continued in the early 2000s and the potential of the airline's hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport to become a major transit airport was realised . In 2000 LOT took delivery of its largest-ever order of 11 aircraft, and by 2001 it had reached a milestone passengers-carried figure of 3 million customers in one year; the expansion led to the reconstruction of much of LOT's ground infrastructure, and by 2002 a new central Warsaw head office was opened on Ul. 17 Stycznia. On 26 October 2003, LOT, after the collapse of the Qualiflyer Group, became the 14th member of the Star Alliance. By 2006 a new base of operations, with the reconstruction of Warsaw Chopin Airport, had opened, thus allowing LOT's full transit airline potential to be developed for the first time. The new airport was much larger than any previous airport in Poland. In that same year, Pope Benedict XVI returned to Rome on a LOT flight following his pilgrimage to Poland.
LOT created low-cost arm Centralwings in 2004; however, the company was dissolved and reincorporated into LOT after just five years of operating due to its long-term unprofitability and LOT's wish to redeploy aircraft within its fleet.
In 2008, LOT opened a new flight to Beijing, but this lasted just one month, in the period before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The reason given by the airline for the discontinuation of the service was the need to route aircraft via an air corridor to the south of Kazakhstan (as LOT did not have permission for flights over Siberia from the Russian government), which was making the services too long and thus unprofitable.
LOT started new services to Yerevan, Armenia, Beirut, Lebanon, and resumed Tallinn, Estonia, Kaliningrad, Russia, Gothenburg, Sweden, and Bratislava, Slovakia with its newly acquired Embraer aircraft in the summer of 2010. In October of the same year LOT resumed service to Asia, with three weekly flights on the Warsaw – Hanoi route. In addition to this, new services to Tbilisi, Damascus, and Cairo were inaugurated.
In 2010 LOT cancelled flights, after 14 years of operation, between Kraków and the US destinations of Chicago and New York City, citing profitability concerns and lack of demand. The last US-Kraków flight departed on 27 October 2010 from Chicago O'Hare Airport. The aircraft previously used on this route were then re-deployed to serve LOT's Warsaw-Hanoi route. This route to Hanoi (the Vietnamese capital) was largely under-utilised by European carriers and proved very successful for LOT in the beginning.
On 31 May 2010, CEO of LOT Sebastian Mikosz said that the airline would be replacing its fleet to meet a goal of one-third new by 2011. Replacement already started with Embraer E-Jets 175/170. For domestic expanded operations, LOT purchased Dash 8-Q400 over ATR 72-600 aircraft.
On 5 February 2011, the new CEO of LOT, Marcin Piróg, announced that the airline was considering opening services to Baku, Sochi, Stuttgart, Oslo, Gothenburg, Dubai, Kuwait, and Ostrava from its Warsaw hub in the near future. Previously planned flights to Donetsk in Ukraine had already been inaugurated, as had Tokyo, and the resumption of Beijing flights. This became feasible after the finalizing of an agreement on Siberian overflight permits for LOT by the Polish and Russian governments in November 2011. As a result of the agreement, LOT received new take-off and landing slots at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport. Although delayed from the original plans, LOT began flights to Tokyo on 13 January 2016, with flights three times per week.
In 2010/11 LOT announced its new 'East meets West' route expansion policy, which saw the airline add several new Asian destinations to its schedule over the coming years. The policy aimed to take advantage of LOT's perspective as a transit airline and the substantial passenger growth seen on Europe-Asia flights in recent years. Also, in line with this policy LOT introduced premium economy class on all Boeing 787 aircraft. Additionally, lie-flat seats were made available in business class, and all of the airline's new long-haul aircraft were fitted with Thales personal entertainment systems.
In June 2012, LOT announced all services to New York would be centralized from Newark and JFK Terminal 4 to JFK Terminal 1 from October 2012. It would also enter into a codeshare agreement with JetBlue to increase the number of onward connections available to its customers. In July 2012 it was announced that a planned sale of a major stake in the airline to Turkish Airlines would not go ahead. The main problem was the inability of Turkish Airlines to own a majority stake, inasmuch as it is not a European Union company.
On 21 June 2015, 1,400 of the airline's passengers were affected as 22 of its flights were impacted after hackers attacked airline computers that were issuing flight plans at Warsaw's Okecie airport. LOT spokesman Adrian Kubicki said: "We're using state-of-the-art computer systems, so this could potentially be a threat to others in the industry."
Amidst a restructuring plan which saw the airline return to profitability for the first time in seven years, a 22 June 2015 press conference revealed details about the airline's prospects. These included reinstating routes renounced as part of EU sanctions imposed following Polish government aid granted to ensure the airline's survival, as well as new long haul routes to Asia and North America.
Air Lease Corporation confirmed on 13 October 2016, the placement of six Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft with LOT, and options to lease five further aircraft of the same type. Long haul plans saw the addition of further Boeing 787 aircraft, increasing the total to 16. The airline was evaluating the economics of future narrow body and wide body acquisitions to broaden expansion initiatives. The airline's CEO said that they were evaluating the Airbus A220 and Embraer E-Jet-E2 families, as well as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 XWB offerings.
In May 2018, LOT Polish Airlines started scheduled flights from outside Poland beginning with long-haul routes to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and O'Hare International Airport in Chicago from Budapest airport in Hungary. In May 2019, it started flying from Lithuanian capital Vilnius to London City airport, and from Estonian capital Tallinn to Brussels and Stockholm two months later. The latter two flights were suspended in early 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In December 2018, LOT was ranked the quietest among 50 airlines that regularly fly to Heathrow Airport in London. LOT spokesman Adrian Kubicki attributed the result to modern Boeing 737 MAX 8s with modern CFM International engines being used, and to the airline's pilots’ precise landing technique using the continuous descent approach (CDA) procedure.
On 24 January 2020, the owner of LOT, the Polish Aviation Group (Polska Grupa Lotnicza or PGL) announced that it would acquire Condor Flugdienst. On 2 April 2020 it was announced that the sale had fallen through.
The company temporarily suspended operations on 15 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and domestic Polish flights restarted only on 1 June 2020, while international flights were resumed on a very limited basis from 1 July 2020. LOT Polish Airlines recorded a net loss of US$365.2 million in 2020, with a loss in sales of $138.1 million.
The airline posted a gross profit of $28 million for 2022, and a net profit of $276 million for 2023.
In February 2025, LOT announced it would end long-haul operations from Budapest, Hungary, from where it currently serves a single route to Seoul by March 2025. This leaves all of their long-haul operations at Polish airports.
Currently, the airline is wholly owned by Polish Aviation Group (Polish: Polska Grupa Lotnicza S. A.), a Polish state-owned holding company.
LOT was intended to be privatised in 2011. Although advanced talks were undertaken with Turkish Airlines a deal failed to materialise. This was largely due to the inability of Turkish Airlines, as a non-EU airline, to buy a majority of the airline. LOT lost 145.5 million złoty (PLN) in 2011, compared to a 163.1 million PLN loss in 2010.
LOT saw a return to profitability in 2016, with profits of 183.5 million and more than 280 million PLN respectively. The profits led the then finance minister Mateusz Morawiecki to suggest they were a result of his government's policies. He also accused the previous Civic Platform government of leading the airline to either bankruptcy or "accelerated privatisation".
LOT Polish Airlines serves a network of European destinations in addition to flights in Asia, the Middle East, and North America.
LOT Polish Airlines has codeshare agreements with the following airlines:
As of October 2024, LOT Polish Airlines operated the following aircraft:
With the delivery of new Boeing 787 long-haul aircraft in 2011/12, LOT introduced a new livery. This design was intended to retain the tradition and spirit of LOT with no major or radical changes to the livery applied to the airline's aircraft. The blue nose and broad cheat-line were removed; the 'POLSKIE LINIE LOTNICZE' title on each aircraft's starboard side was replaced with the words 'POLISH AIRLINES'. The tailplane's design was changed only slightly, with the colours of the traditional encircled crane logo being inverted and the circle becoming a more simple outline ring.
Several Embraer aircraft have special advertising liveries, while one E-175 was repainted as a retrojet into the 1945 livery that was used with some modifications until the 1970s.
Airliners featured all-natural metal silvery color, with a black crane logo on the tail, and a small black inscription: POLSKIE LINIE LOTNICZE „LOT" under or above the window line. Before 1939, there was also a rounded inscription: LOT above passenger doors (apart from Ju 52, which also differed in having black engine covers and nacelles).
After World War II, the aircraft mostly wore a similar all-natural metal scheme, with the airline name above the window line. In the late 1940s, the Polish white and red flag was added on a rudder. From the early 1950s, a thin blue cheatline was introduced below the window line, starting with a stylized bird in front. Some aircraft flew in military schemes (green and light blue or olive drab and grey).
This livery featured blue mid-level broad cheatline on the window line, with the fuselage a white colour above the cheatline and unpainted below. Early versions of this livery also featured thin blue stripes above and below the cheatline and a white tail, with small black crane logo on the fin and medium-size Polish flag on the rudder. Above the cheatline there was black inscription in italics: POLSKIE LINIE LOTNICZE »LOT«. There was also a long black stylized crane below the cockpit on most aircraft. In the early 1960s, the scheme was modernized and featured the blue cheatline without upper and lower stripes, and a blue tail fin and rudder. The Polish flag was much larger on the tail, while the crane logo was above the flag, on a white circle. There was also another Polish flag on the cheatline, behind the cockpit. On Il-18s and Il-62s, the cheatline was narrower, below the window line.
LOT's iconic livery was introduced in 1977 and has undergone no major changes. The livery is essentially a predominantly white scheme with elements of traditional aviation design incorporated. The latter elements were visible in the design of the LOT livery as an area of dark blue under the cockpit windscreen, the long cheat-line painted down the side of the fuselage and the large traditional logo which is emblazoned on the tailplane.
Ilyushin Il-62 aircraft were named after famous Polish people, with the first-named Mikołaj Kopernik. The five Boeing 767s LOT ordered from Boeing were named after Polish cities. The used and short term leased 767s LOT operated did not get names. This practise was not continued upon arrival of LOT's Boeing 787s and the introduction of the airline's updated livery. Only LOT's sixth 787, SP-LRF, was named 'Franek' after an online vote organised by the airline.
LOT uses Lufthansa's frequent-flyer program, called Miles & More. Miles & More members can earn miles on LOT flights and Star Alliance partner flights, as well as through LOT credit cards and purchases made through LOT Polish Airlines shops. Status within Miles & More is determined by miles flown during one calendar year with specific partners. Membership levels include Basic (no minimal threshold), Frequent Traveller (Silver, 35,000-mile threshold), Senator (Gold, 100,000-mile threshold), and HON Circle (Black, 600,000-mile threshold over two calendar years). All non-basic Miles & More status levels offer lounge access and executive bonus miles, with the higher levels offering more exclusive benefits.
LOT operates, in cooperation with PPL (Polish State Airports), the 'Polonez' Business Lounge at Warsaw Chopin Airport. The lounge is accessible to anyone with a business class ticket for travel with LOT or any other Star Alliance member airline, and those who are members of a Star Alliance 'Gold' loyalty program (such as Miles & More Senator status) or the Polish State Airports authority's 'Good Start' program. Some examples of services offered to passengers include business conferencing facilities, internet access, workspace, local, national and foreign-language media (newspapers and television) and individual access to an Apple iPad. LOT also opened a Polonez Lounge at Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport in 2018.
It is an exclusive zone within LOT Business Lounge Polonez where passengers can work peacefully and have rest in a comfort.
It includes quiet relaxation zone, place to work and upgraded food and beverage menu.
It's a business lounge that offers unique views of the apron.
During the Cold War, when Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, several LOT aircraft were hijacked and forced to land in a Western country, predominantly in West Germany and especially in West Berlin, because of it being situated like an island in the Eastern Bloc. The hijackers were usually not prosecuted there but could claim political asylum, along with all other passengers who wished to do so.
Media related to LOT Polish Airlines at Wikimedia Commons