NEW route Newark - Rzeszow by Poland's LOT

Hello everybody,

LOT polish airlines annouced new direct route between Newark-Liberty Airport and Rzeszow, Will start april 29. More info: latamzrzeszowa.blogspot.com/2017/12/lot-stawia-na-jasionke-polecimy-do-usa.html

Are you familiar with LOT`s terminal at Ohare, its number 5 right?

I know you don't speak Polish, but the blog is about flying from Rzeszów, not about Chicago.

Do try harder in future, American.

I'm pretty sure they're actually restarting a route they dropped early this decade because it wasn't making any money. It's even more bizarre that LOT should want to start increasing long-haul flights from the provinces, given that they're supposedly 100% behind the idea of building a regional hub 50km from Warsaw, although I suppose that these flights were announced before the insane plan to build the new boondoggle airport.


Fun fact: even when LOT was the only airline operating scheduled flights from Rzeszow airport it didn't have its own terminal there.

It makes absolutely no financial sense to do so. They're never going to fill the Dreamliner with enough people, and no-one is going to risk taking one flight a week to Rzeszów when they can simply fly to Warsaw and connect on a short hop to Rzeszów on a domestic LOT flight. The catchment area for flights from Rzeszów is tiny, especially as anyone flying from Lviv will prefer to connect through Kyiv or Warsaw rather than bothering with the mess that is the Polish border.

This is purely about politics, and using LOT to appeal to the inbreds in that part of Poland who will think that it's an achievement to use taxpayer's money to subsidise loss-making flights.

A flight from New York to Wrocław would make much more sense, but that wouldn't make sense politically.

Unless plans have changed since I saw them, LOT aren't even going to bother trying to fill a Dreamliner, it'll be a 767 all the way.

Are LOT still using the ATR flying cattle trucks on that route? I think I'd rather fly to Lviv and drive, even with the farce at the border.

I'm pretty sure that the funds being used to finance this (off the top of my head it was something in the region of 50 million zloty) are in large part EU funds. There was a farce of a tender process which by complete co-incidence was won by the airline whose senior staff are all appointed by the same political party which appoints the leadership in that region.

They're using a complete mix - Dash-8's, the E-175 and even the E-195 on one rotation. The ATR's have thankfully been binned.

Speaking of which, I really can't stand the inefficiency of LOT on domestic flights. I flew several times to Warsaw recently, and every single time, LOT took an absolute age in Okęcie to actually board the planes. In comparison, Nordica in Tallinn (although operated by LOT!) managed to complete bordering of a CRJ-900 in 10 minutes.

You didn't understand the question, Duh, expat.

That is the terminal to which LOT's flights are currently assigned, it is not LOT's terminal. If the owners of the airport decided that on Mondays LOT's planes would use terminal one and on Tuesdays terminal two and on Wednesdays terminal three and on Thursdays LOT couldn't use the airport at all, that is what would LOT would need to accept.

With a bit of luck LOT can dust off their fleet of flying cattle trucks and use them for the Rzeszow - Newark route. Then Rzeszow could boast about having flights to Prestwick, Iceland, Greenland and New York, all from just one route.


That's more to do with the type of a lot of the people who take internal flights in Poland with LOT (i.e. not paying themselves, think they are VIPs and demand to be treated accordingly). RyanAir flights are the most amusing right now, especially with the new policy on bags, but I'm sure the queuing at Rzeszow airport for the NY flight would be hilarious, surpassed only by the experience at NY, where one could laugh at the unsuspecting Americans who don't know what kind of people will want to fly to NY from Rzeszow.

I don't speak english sorry. Only polish. This post is about direct flights USA - Rzeszow, not about "flying from Rzeszow". And I think, this is not Chicago forum...

Do you think there's a genuine need for direct flights from Rzeszow to the USA? Especially given that those flights are only viable when EU funds are redirected by PIS appointed local officials to a company run by PIS loyalists.

Also, do you think that LOT should purchase its own terminals at American airports to service the handful of flights it runs per day to the USA?

If you have proofs that it's not profitable, just buy 1 share of LOT and file a lawsuite for the top folks for mismanagement, that's it. Otherwise shut the hell up.

It's a well known fact that the route will not be profitable in terms of ticket sales. The only reason that LOT are restarting the route is that they are getting 45 million zloty from the local government over a five-year period. It's exactly the same as with the flights from Rzeszow to Rome and Paris which EurLOT started when they got a boatload of cash from the local government (and still couldn't make any money).

The local gov is the co-owner of the airport there + there's also a pilot training center of Politechnika. So in the end they would either have to cover the costs of keeping it operational anyway or shut it down and pay a fortune for re-launch sometimes in the future. The definition of "profitable" is not always at the 2 + 2 level.

+ setting up multiple accounts and talking to yourself is crazy.

Come to think about it, the last time I was on this forum there was this lunitic ranting and raving against LOT is this the same person?

All I can say is that I've personally flown from Chicago to Warsaw 3 times via LOT and never had any issues at all.

Yes, talking to yourself is crazy, is he the OP also?

You seem to miss the point that the route was shut down at the beginning of this decade and is now only being re-launched because the local government are paying LOT a small fortune. The whole thing is simply laughable.

The number of LOT flights I've taken is well into three figures and I've also never had any issues with them. They did a couple of times cancel my flight from Prague to Warsaw but each time paid for my hotel and meals plus a couple of hundred euro; if I'd really have needed to be back in Warsaw I'd have just taken the overnight train (which LOT would have paid for too).


Do you mean the person who insists that LOT has its own terminal at Chicago airport?

It's completely laughable when you consider that there are much better options available for international route development. No-one is going to risk a one-time-a-week flight that could get cancelled, and the business end of the plane will be empty (and that's where the profit is made).

What makes this even more ridiculous is that if there's no demand for a New York-Krakow direct flight, then there's unlikely to be demand for New York - Rzeszów.

It would make much more sense to up the capacity on Rzeszów-Warsaw, then use that to funnel traffic into the European and long haul networks.

LOT are doing well in Europe (which is the strategy that PO authored and agreed with the EU), but their long haul strategy at the minute seems to be a complete mess and based on politics rather than on business.

Given the location, it's likely that a fairly sizable proportion of the few business class tickets sold on the route will be to senior staff at state-owned companies, i.e. paid for by those of us who pay taxes in Poland (which so far in this thread is me and you).

Have you seen they're basing a 787 in Budapest so as to offer direct flights to the US from there? Still, at least at Budapest they could, if they were stupid enough to want to, T1 there hasn't been used for anything except parties and TV shoots since Malev went bust and RyanAir said that they actually do have some standards when it comes to terminals.


That's what happens when appointments are made based on political loyalty rather than business ability.

@Taxpaying voter
You 2 characters seem like a couple of fools with nothing better to do, other than degrade an airline company.
If you don't like LOT fly with another carrier.
This whole thing seems like trolling.

Yup, more than likely. The whole thing is a farce, and I dare say many of those tickets will be sold to those people simply so LOT can claim that it's a huge success. Meanwhile, our taxes will go to pay for PiS members to enjoy nice holidays in New York.

And yeah, I saw the Budapest route as well. Nothing feeds into Budapest, so it's essentially a point to point long haul flight without any connections. Completely useless, in other words, though I dare say Fidesz members will enjoy a few nice trips to New York at the Hungarian taxpayer's expense.


Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the economics of the Rzeszów-New York route. If Kraków, a much larger tourist and business market, cannot sustain a single flight from New York, what makes you think that Rzeszów can do it?

Oh, they can't. That's why they've got a huge amount of cash to operate the route.

I do like LOT. When there's a choice on the route, I usually go with LOT (such as to LHR). I'd like to fly LOT more, but they keep moving their planes onto routes that exist solely for political reasons rather than based on where people actually want to fly.


I have no problem at all with LOT as an airline, my issue is their management, but those will change when the government does. I just hope LOT hasn't been driven into bankruptcy by then.


Look in the thread above, Delph and I are discussing what LOT is doing and what it should be doing. Certain other posters are either focusing on who is posting or making utterly false and off-topic claims such as LOT having its own terminal at an airport which has nothing to do with this thread.

Indeed. LOT were/are starting to have success with the Asian network. Instead, now we have two completely useless rotations to the US that are being operated solely for political purposes.

More flights into Warsaw is what makes sense, it strengthens the domestic LOT network.

Well, there are four flights a day to Warsaw....
The problem is that pretty much everywhere which does have flights from Budapest also has multiple direct flights daily to multiple destinations in the USA. So in reality it is a point to point long haul flight without any connections, just like the Newark - Rzeszow flight, but without the tens of millions in subsidies. Genius, eh.


But LOT are apparently right behind the plan to close Warsaw airport....

Of course they are, because they've been told to be.

In reality, the move will kill LOT's domestic network in terms of connections to Warsaw, because no-one will bother with flying to Warsaw anymore from Poznań, Wrocław, etc. if the airport is in the sticks rather than a 20 minute hop to the centre of Warsaw, not to mention the proximity of Okęcie to the business districts in Warsaw.

The real travesty here is how much cash is being wasted on this. It's just yet another PiS aviation vanity project, just like that joke of an airport in Radom that has zero scheduled flights now.

LOT will also pay the airport fees and other things + a lot of costs related to keeping the airport operational would have to be covered anyway + people working there pay taxes and a significant share goes to the local govs + likely the airport pays several million annually for the land tax alone.

The choice in this case is:

- to subsidize flights.
- keep the airport operational but nearly empty, which in the end will cost even more
- shut it down and in 10 years pay a fortune for re-launch
- shut it down forever and make the region marginalized s.

Most of your beloved "foreign investments" is being subsidized (occasionally it even makes sense) but then you "expats" **** your pants when "investors" get tax benefits, infrastructure and many other things worth billions annually.

Why are two foreigners so concerned about the way LOT conducts its business? Seems to be another nefarious thread. Nobody from LOT cares about your gibberish.

As taxpayers and voters in Poland, we have a right to be concerned about the way that LOT conducts its business, just as you have a right to be concerned about the rubbish that is Amtrak.


Good idea. Rzeszów could do with a connection to Frankfurt and perhaps Paris. New York? What for?


Which is why route development funds exist. There's plenty of potential for short haul European flights which could become profitable in time. New York - Rzeszów is never going to be profitable by itself. Where's the short haul traffic feeding into these flights?

Could you link to a source which confirms your claim about paying fees and details the "other things"? You seem to be entirely unaware that this route is already being re-started at the cost of tens of millions.


One half-full flight a week is neither going to make or break the airport. What would help is adding more routes to destinations people actually want to go to, the kind of routes which do not need a subsidy of about 600 zloty per passenger. It's absolute insanity to pay that much!

The subsidy is 45 million zloty over five years, so nine million per year.
Nine million per year is 173,000 per week, so 86,500 per flight.
If LOT can hit the load factor they manage on their route LA-Warsaw route (73%), which is highly unlikely, given the passenger size of the Rzeszow market compared to Warsaw and the lack of onward flights on LOT to anywhere except Warsaw, on the 737 they'll use with 200 seats (actually slightly less but let's make the numbers easy here), that's 146 passengers per flight and so a subsidy of 592zl per passenger!

That money could be far better spent on other things than pointless boondoggle.


Largely because when LOT makes a loss, we who pay tax in Poland get stuck with the bill. Just as we have to pay for the non-EU funds being diverted to LOT as a result of this insane new deal and we also need to pay for other things which could instead have been funded with those EU funds. From memory you pay zero tax in Poland.

I'll be surprised if they hit even 60%. They don't have the planes to create any sort of feeder traffic, and even then, anyone connecting is going to prefer flying into a major European hub simply because they'll have alternatives if the flight is cancelled. Given that this flight is supposed to start in summer, it would make far more sense to operate a rotation to some tourist destination from Warsaw rather than wasting their time with this.

Developing provincial Polish airports with short haul European routes - yes. Long haul? No.

I'm completely stumped as to where one might feed Rzeszow from. Possibly Radom? But that would require flights to be set up and if you're going to bother with that, you might as well run them to Warsaw instead so as to feed the other long-haul destinations (or even the medium and short-haul flights). Same problem with Lublin.


It would make more sense to give 150 passengers per week who want to fly from Rzeszow to the USA free flights to Warsaw and a free night at the airport Marriott each way. That would cost less.

I'd say just offer flights to places where the locals want to go, even though that does mean depressing destinations such as Doncaster. And places they can afford to go to and stay in. What percentage of people from that region can afford a week in NY and what percentage can afford a week in Odessa?