LOT Polish Airlines Is Launching A New Route To New York

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Before the pandemic wreaked havoc with the airline industry, LOT Polish Airlines had built up a good network of flights between Poland and the United States. A number of these services were suspended or cut back significantly in the first half of 2020 but LOT is now starting to add flights back and has now even announced a new route between Poland and New York.

LOT has offered flights from Warsaw to New York (JFK & Newark) and Chicago for a number of years (both cities are home to large populations of Polish descent), in 2017 the airline added flights between Krakow and Chicago and flights between Warsaw and Los Angeles, and in 2019 it launched a service between Warsaw and Miami. Now LOT has revived plans to offer flights between Krakow and New York JFK.

LOT’s New Krakow – JFK Route

As things stand (we’re living in very fluid times!), LOT is set to start offering a weekly service between Krakow and New York JFK from 2 May 2021. The route will be operated by one of the airline’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners on the following schedule (per ExpertFlyer):

LO19 KRK 12:05 – 15:30 JFK (Mon)
LO20 JFK 17:30 – 08:10+1 day KRK (Sun)

Note: This route will launch from New York JFK

The new route is already open for bookings and Economy Class saver awards are already bookable on United.com from 33,000 miles each way while Business Class awards are available from 77,000 miles.

LOT Brings Back An Old Route

Up until the end of October 2019, LOT operated a seasonal service between Rzeszów and Newark. COVID-19 ensured that the route didn’t return in 2020 but LOT is set to resurrect this service on 29 March 2021. This is what the currently published schedule looks like:

LO17 RZE 14:10 – 17:50 EWR (Mon)
LO18 EWR 19:45 – 10:20+1 day RZE (Tue)

The route is scheduled to be operated by one of LOT’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners.

LOT’s Other Routes To/From The United States

In brief, this is the current situation with LOT’s other routes between Poland and the United States:

• Warsaw – JFK: Currently operating 3x/week and scheduled to operate up to 10x/week in Summer 2021.
• Warsaw – Newark: Currently not operating but scheduled to operate up to 5x/week in Summer 2021.
• Warsaw – Chicago: Currently operating 2x/week and scheduled to operate up to 9x/week in Summer 2021.
• Warsaw – Los Angeles: Currently not operating but scheduled to operate up to 6x/week in Summer 2021.
• Warsaw – Miami: Currently not operating but scheduled to operate up to 4x/week in Summer 2021.
• Warsaw – San Francisco: Route is still scheduled to launch on 2 June with service 4x/week in Summer 2021.
• Krakow – Chicago: Currently not operating but scheduled to operate up to 5x/week in Summer 2021.

It’s important to stress that what I’ve listed out above is only what the schedules are currently showing. More than at any point that I can remember, airline schedules are very fluid right now and can change very quickly so none of the above should be taken as a guarantee that a route will operate or that the route will operate as many times as is currently indicated.

LOT Polish 787-8 Dreamliner

LOT’s 787-8 Dreamliners seat up to 252 passengers and offer 3 cabins of service – Business Class, Premium Economy, and Economy.

LOT’s Dreamliners have been fitted with a newer-style of Business Class seat which, although it doesn’t offer all-aisle-access, offers good lie-flat seats with a lot of personal space.

In the Premium Economy cabin passengers have seats that are 19.5″ wide and which come with a seat pitch (legroom) of 38″. That compares favorably with the Premium Economy cabins you’ll find on the US carriers and a number of European carriers (the legroom on offer is equal but LOT offers up to 1″ more seat width).

Unfortunately, the news in the Economy Class cabin isn’t so good. Actually, it’s pretty bad.

I can honestly say that I have very little desire to try out the LOT 787-8 Economy Class cabin because the seats are just too tight. Just like a lot of other airlines LOT has crammed in 9 seats across its 787-8 Dreamliner cabin…

…and that means that the airline offers under 17″ of seat width in the Economy Class cabin. Why would I want to subject myself to that?

The news doesn’t get any better when it comes to legroom either. The airline has squeezed in 213 Economy Class seats into the cabin and that has left the seat pitch at just 31″.

Put simply, the pictures of the Economy Class cabin make it look perfectly ok…

…but the underlying truth is that this cabin is among the most cramped cabins that you’ll find on a transatlantic route.

Bottom Line

LOT will launch a new route between Krakow and New York JFK this spring and it will resurrect another of its US routes at the end of March.

The Business Class cabin on offer on the new route may not be of the same standard that you’ll find on American’s 777s or Delta’s A350s but it’s still not a bad option. For anyone looking for an economical way to avoid the horrendous-looking Economy Class cabin, LOT’s Premium Economy product may work very well.