LOT Polish Airlines is resuming its pre-pandemic flight schedule to the US. The number of flights to Chicago will be 14 flights per week: 10 from Chopin Airport, and 4 from Kraków Airport. So far, there have been 11 flights from Warsaw and 3 from Krakow. LOT Polish Airlines is celebrating the 50th anniversary of opening flights from Warsaw to Chicago.

“Throughout 2022, we will offer almost 300,000 seats on destinations to Chicago. We will transport about 250 thousand people” said Rafał Milczarski, the president of the national carrier, during a press conference in Chicago. On May 17, 1972, the first LOT plane to Chicago took off from the Okęcie airport in Warsaw, starting a 50-year history of flights to this city.

President MIlczarski also spoke at the conference about destinations to the East, which are still burdened with pandemic restrictions, and for the last two months also the war in Ukraine. This means significant losses for the airlines. From the middle of last year, LOT withdrew from Belarus.

“The war in Ukraine caused significant devastation of our activities, we had to cancel approx. 9% destinations and 13% are influenced by the conflict. We flew until the end to Ukraine; we were one of the last carriers to stop flights. This proves how important this Ukrainian traffic is for us”, said Milczarski.

The national carrier is trying to replace the lost destinations with new connections. On May 31, the Indian Mumbai will join LOT’s network; a year-round connection that will be operated twice a week in the summer season. On the same day, the route to Cairo will be also launched with five flights a week throughout the year.

At the end of May, LOT will also inaugurate connections to Baku in Azerbaijan and Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Flights to Pristina will start in early June.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński