LOT Polish Airlines will launch thirteen new seasonal summer routes to the Croatian coast over the next two weeks, as well as a new summer service to Podgorica. The carrier will inaugurate brand new flights to Dubrovnik from Wroclaw, Poznan and Gdansk, to Split from Gdansk, Poznan, Katowice and Lublin, to Zadar from Gdansk, Krakow, Bydgoszcz and Szczecin, as well as from Poznan to Podgorica. This will be complemented by the addition of its previously announced new summer services from Budapest to Dubrovnik, as well as from Rzeszow to Zadar. Last week, LOT outlined it would resume operations from Warsaw to Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar and Podgorica, as well as from Krakow to Dubrovnik, in July. Overall, the carrier plans to start up some sixty new seasonal summer flights, with further details available here.
| Route | Launch date |
|---|---|
| Lublin - Split | JUL 03 |
| Gdansk - Zadar | JUL 03 |
| Wroclaw - Dubrovnik | JUL 04 |
| Budapest - Dubrovnik | JUL 04 |
| Bydgoszcz - Zadar | JUL 04 |
| Rzeszow - Zadar | JUL 04 |
| Katowice - Split | JUL 05 |
| Poznan - Dubrovnik | JUL 05 |
| Poznan - Split | JUL 06 |
| Krakow - Zadar | JUL 07 |
| Gdansk - Dubrovnik | JUL 07 |
| Gdansk - Split | JUL 08 |
| Szczecin - Zadar | JUL 09 |
| Poznan - Podgorica | JUL 09 |
Click on links for flight details
All of LOT’s new services to Croatia and Montenegro will run once per week and launch in the coming two weeks. In addition, the majority of the fourteen routes will operate with the Embraer E195 jet, which has the capacity to seat 112 passengers, although some will be run by the Dash 8 turboprop and the Boeing 737-800 aircraft. “These new routes are being offered as part of the #LOTnaWakacje campaign to places with a stable epidemiological situation, which are, at the same time, open to tourists coming from abroad. Apart from Montenegro and Cyprus, where a negative coronavirus test result is required for entry, other countries have abolished restrictions related to testing or quarantine”, LOT said in a statement.
The Polish national carrier will resume international flights on July 1, almost four months after suspending them to curb the spread of the coronavirus. With exception to facemasks being required on board, the airline’s service will remain mostly unchanged. Passengers will receive a small sweet and savoury snack and a bottle of water, while all other meals and drinks can be purchased on board. Travellers will also still be permitted the same carryon baggage allowance as before the pandemic. The new routes will represent a welcome boost for the Croatian and Montenegrin tourism industries which are seeking to salvage as much of the remaining summer season as possible.
Interesting that LOT is flying for the first time from some of those Polish cities.
ReplyDeleteWhich ones?
DeleteFirst time they have international scheduled flights from Bydgoszcz, Katowice and Lublin.
DeleteSzczecin too. I think that is Szczecins first international route.
DeleteSzczecin had routes to Scandinavia and Germany I think before the corona crisis
DeleteSzczecin is one and a half up to mostly two hours by car/van from both Berlin airports, on 6 lane highway and no border controls (speaking of normal, not corona scam times) and that's why the airport always had minimum flights, people simply fly from/to Berlin. It can be compared with Ljubljana/Rijeka /Trieste where people mostly use Venice for much more competitive prices and much bigger offer. And with Berlin/Szczecin it will probably remain the same in the future as Berlin is highly likely to get back to all or almost all of its traffic relatively soon, which might not be the case with Venice which is much dependent on tourist traffic, unlike Berlin
DeleteMore like two hours+. They are served by LOT, Wizz, SAS, Ryanair and Norwegian. The rest of the people, as you mentioned, flies from TXL or POZ. Airport no. 9 in Poland. >40% of pax fly to WAW, as until rail refurbishment due to end in 2022, when the rail will be accelerated to 160 km/h, any other travel to Warsaw is just waaay too long (highway to Warsaw >5h).
DeleteRijeka is served by Croatia Airlines, Trade Air, Lufthansa, Eurowings, Condor, TUI UK, Arkia, CSA, Air Serbia, Enter Air, Ryanair, Air Baltic, Volotea (pre-coronascam period) but the frequencies are so modest that the airport cannot be taken seriously. So no matter Szczecin has few airlines, Berlin is the main reason why it's only number nine in Poland, despite its size, location and importance. And I travelled Schonefeld to Szczecin center one hour fifty minutes. Maybe I was just lucky :)
DeleteThat's a LOT :)
ReplyDeleteBig expansion, but I have a feeling they will fail badly this summer in Croatia. Good luck anyway.
ReplyDeleteWhy not Tivat instead of Podgorica?
ReplyDeleteReally good news for the Croatian coastline and tourism.
ReplyDeleteI hope some of these routes will resume next summer too, in hopefully the post corona world.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see some airlines adapting and responding quickly to the new situation. This was done because many places remain off bounds for Polish tourists.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThe standard of living in Poland has been increasing thanks to EU membership and more Poles are beginning to travel to more affordable destinations worldwide.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the Croatian coast will become more popular for them. They are also good tourists and don't have a foolish attitude such as the Brits.
Bravo Hrvatska and Montenegro keeps winning!
Don't know if anyone has noticed that they will be swapping around planes between routes on some flights to Zadar.
ReplyDeletewerent they about to launch LOT 2.0?
ReplyDeleteThat plan existed mainly in this blog. :D :D :D
DeleteWhat is it about? I don't remember reading anything about it here.
DeleteI remember reading about it a lot in the comments a few days ago.
DeleteOh I found it :D I didn't realize you meant in the comments
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2020/06/lot-to-resume-limited-ex-yu-network.html
Yes, doom and gloom predicted for LOT then.
So much for the nostradamuses.
Delete+1000
DeleteSo many "experts" in the comment section!
Well they created LOT 2.0 and it already applied for an AOC, what will happen with LOT nobody knows really. We will probably know more after the second round of presidential elections in Poland 12.7.
DeleteFor now, LOT is not giving back money for cancelled flights for already over 3 months.
Which airline right now in Europe or in America gives refunds for cancelled flights?
Delete@anon 11:18 I received a refund over the last month for my cancelled flights with easyJet, British Airways, Ryanair, and Lufthansa. And those were the only airlines I had cancelled flights for, so there must be more out there that give refunds. What are you even talking about?
Delete@anon 11:18
DeleteI am just waiting for the LOT refund, so this is the only experience I have. I dont know personally how is it with other airlines, but from what I heard, there are no such issues.
I live in Warsaw so I dont have any wish to see LOT fail or dissapear. I am just transferring the news from polish aviation sites to here. Currently there is a lot of guessing going on because the goverment and LOT are not giving much information about what will happen with the company. The only facts are that a new company has been created and it applied for an AOC.
Now, will the network stay the same, what help will they get from Polish govm, will the tickets, refunds and so on be respected by the new company and so on is all a guessing game right now.
As one commenter mentioned, it could all be a play with the plane leasors, to get them to lower the lease prices. I guess we will see.
This commenter was me. LO pays approx. 125 mln USD in leasing fees yearly. If they get a reduction of 20%, it means 25 mln USD yearly for the next 5 years (around 50% of LO's yearly EBITDA in the past years). If they don't get it, it means they are less competitive by 25 mln USD yearly. Quite a lot of money to fight for, and unless you push hard and convince your lessors that you are capable to go the extreme way and then they lose everything, because as part of the restructuring you terminate the leasing agreements, you will not get it. This should be considered by all airlines, who operate to a large extent based on leased equipment.
DeleteI've never heard of half of these places but it's great these are all launching :D
ReplyDeleteI can't pronounce many of them
DeleteSurprised there is nothing to Rijeka or Pula :(
ReplyDeleteLast year new Warsaw-Rijeka flights were announced. We will see if it happens. They have only scheduled flights until 15th of July while everything after that is based on pre-corona schedule. That's why the route is currently scheduled to stat on the 19th but it's really questionable.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/p/lot-polish-airlines-warsaw-rijeka.html
Thank you. Hope they materialize.
DeleteOr Zadar either which was supposed to get a few Polish routes with Ryanair but all were cancelled.
DeleteThey must not be planning on bringing many routes if they have the capacity to launch 60 new routes.
ReplyDeleteEven though they are all once per week, that's 13 weekly flights to Croatia. Not bad at all.
ReplyDeleteAnything is welcome in this sort of situation.
DeleteGood choice from LOT, try to make fast cash with more leisure destinations.
ReplyDeleteI know this will be 100% filled by Polish tourists, but it's nice they are selling these tickets online as well so its open for everyone.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic news
ReplyDeletePodgorica will have quite a few Polish routes. In addition to the new Lublin flights and LOT's Warsaw flights, they also have Kraków, Poznań and Wrocław by Ryanair and Katowice and Warsaw–Chopin by Wizz.
ReplyDeleteFR's Ponznan-Podgorica flights launch next week.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/p/ryanair-poznan-podgorica.html
DeleteSorry I meant to write In addition to LOT's new Poznan and Warsaw flights
Deleteyea right,... they just cancelled my trip to Dubrodnik ... LOT new business model: Sell flights then cancel them. brilliant
ReplyDeleteWhen was your flight supposed to be?
Deletecharters KTW to OHD (with LOT) are also about to start from July 17th
ReplyDeleteI think those operate each year. But it's nice to see them bring them back.
DeleteBravo Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteI dont see why are not they opening a base there with such an expansion? Or they got rejected for basing aircraft in Croatia?
ReplyDeleteWhy would they open a base for 13 weekly seasonal flights? That would be very expensive and would include hiring a whole lot of people in Croatia. What would be the point?
DeleteAnon 09:47 how would someone stop them from stationing an a/c in HR?
DeleteThey are both EU members.
Well last year LOT did express interest to acquire Croatia Airlines.
DeleteCould their expansion in BUD be a reason why they lost interest in OU?
DeleteThis is really welcomed news.
ReplyDeleteTheir expansion in Croatia has been impressive. They now fly to Croatia from 9 Polish cities
ReplyDeleteThey should have added Brac as well with the Q400.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if they start Brac in 2021.
DeletePity the leisure routes are all low frequency though.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense since it is for tourists with tour packages. Perhaps they could increase to two weekly but more than that I don't see a reason.
DeleteLove LOT. Great to hear
ReplyDeleteThey have added new routes to ex-Yu each year for the last 3 or 4 years. Wonder what we might see next from them.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Sarajevo. I don't understand why these airlines overlook SJJ. I'm sure they would get nice feed to US and Canada.
DeleteAlso Sarajevo is Star Alliance territory. I don't get why LOT doesn't give it a try with their Dash. At least seasonally.
DeleteThere are several options in my opinion. Sarajevo and Pristina year round and/or Tivat, Ohrid seasonally.
DeleteA number of expansion opportunities for them in ex-Yu from Krakow too.
Delete@10.37
DeleteExactly because of Star Alliance presence. It is well connected by Lufthansa and Austrian.
Other airports in ex-Yu are also well covered by Lufthansa and Austrian but that didn't stop them.
DeleteLO has grown so well lately not just in ex-Yu but everywhere. Good work.
ReplyDeleteThis current growth isn't really organic. It's mostly out of necessity.
DeleteTheir fares are quite good.
ReplyDeleteGreat news
ReplyDelete5-6 years ago not a single ex-Yu city had flights to Warsaw. And look now. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are right. I think they slowly began secondary Eastern European non-capital cities such as KSC, CLJ, VAR so I think the same will happen to ex-Yu: INI, OMO, BWK etc.
Delete@Anonymous09:10: not true, they used to fly from Bydgoszcz, Lublin, Olsztyn, Katowice to several cities: Turin, Tel Aviv, Lviv, Kiev etc
ReplyDeleteConsidering recent developments of coronavirus situation in Croatia I'm doubtful they will launch all of these routes. Their future depends on how quickly Croatia gets the situation under control.
ReplyDeleteFlights to among others ZAG and LJU resumed from 15 July. 4-7 weekly.
ReplyDeleteTheir schedule is only finalised until 15th of July
DeleteNope. Info just now. 15 new foreign destinations plus more frequencies on some of the already announced plus domestic flights to KTW.
DeleteBEG is on a list of routes they would like to open as well on 15 July, but are saying that there are some admin barriers they are working on.
Deletecorrect, the new schedule is updated. SKP is resuming from 3.July. Ohrid and Tivat also that week.
DeleteWhat's about Warsaw to new Delhi (India) and new Delhi(india) to Warsaw
ReplyDelete