Interesting: LOT Polish Will Operate London To Vilnius Flights For The Lithuanian Government

I can’t imagine BA able to realistically bid on this work given Brexit.

LO will also start serving LCY from BUD starting next year, so it seems like they have quite the sizable operation planned for LCY.

Riga is in Latvia, Vilnius is in Lithuania and used to be one of major Polish cities for ~500 years. LOT is also rumoured to fly to LCY from Bucharest, Romania. Btw, LOT Polish is currently the fastest growing airline in Europe by the number of routes opened.

I think they will not be flying to LCY from Cracow but from Budapest.

Why are ‘national Carriers’ mentioned. The concept is long dead and is no longer relevant in this day and age.

@Brian

Because of/in spite of Brexit.

Why on Gods Green Earth would BA not be able to bid a route to London?

If it end up with a hard Brexit, including the air agreements, then BA would be the only network carrier able to bid. Since Lithuania does not have any carriers and any other carrier would probably need a 5 freedom right from the British government.

The only casualty in case of a hard Brexit (including air deals) would be IAG, not BA. IAG as British company would not be able to own EU airlines like Iberia, Vueling and that Irish one. Move HQ to Switzerland (and maybe change ownership structure a bit) and get an exemption from the British government for foreign ownership of BA and you are golden.

This of course assumes that the British leave the air agreements, which is not the same as the EU. Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are all members of the European air agreements without being members of the EU.

I have a really good friend that flies for LOT and met with him for dinner last week. We were talking shop and I was saying how great LO seems to be doing with the expansion and launching longhaul flights ex BUD etc. His take was very different though. He said the general consensus amongst LO employees is that the company is expanding too rapidly and not profitably (he said 'we are the eastern europe Norwegian'). He was saying that the loads on the BUD-US routes are dire and yet there was talk of also launching OTP (Romiania) - USA routes.

The BUD-USA routes have actually been operated by a wet leasted 767 (from Euroatlantic) and A330 (from Air Europa) for the past few months with LO only recently operating them again with their own metal. The ex BUD flights were initially crewed with majority WAW based cabin crew and one or two hungarian based crew but that has now flipped - the two senior crew are LO WAW crew and the remainder hungarians.

I can see the appeal for LO operating for other carriers. Their costs for a 'full service' airline are pretty low - polish based staff. In places like JFK the crew stays at a La Quinta Inn in Long Island instead of a larger chain hotel in Manhattan like the airline I work for. Other cities are pretty similar.

They do some pretty dreamy trips in the european winter though! Their long haul scheduled work reduces a little so they use the aircraft instead on holiday charters to places in Thailand, Vietnam, Bali. Sometimes these flights are only once every two weeks and instead of deadheading the crew back on another carrier or via another city LO leaves them out there for a two week 'work' vacation!

BUD-NYC is served by a euroatlantic 767

@Intet slikt navn
IAG is a Spanish company, not British.

@James You mention that London has five airports but isn't it supposedly six? Heathrow, Gatwick, Stanstead, Luton, City and "London Southend"?

@Anon LOL. Southend ain’t in London. mate

@Elijah

Apart from City & Heathrow, none of the airports using London as part of their name are in London. Luton is in Bedfordshire, Stansted in Cambridgeshire, Southend is in Essex and Gatwick is in Sussex.

The BUD-JFK was full whenever i was on board (however non-stop return tickets even one week before travel usually costs around 450USD exBUD). They only use the wetleased 767 (A330 in summer) because of the 787 engine problems. They have grounded 1-2 of them at a time, but from jan or feb they will have the 787 again in the BUD base. Their brand in Hungary is not that strong yet, so they kept the working LO 787s in WAW, and used the wetleased planes in BUD.
There were rumors of a 2nd LO 787 in BUD, which would make JFK a daily flight, Chicago to 3 times a week and 2 times LAX, but as i heard it was postponed to 2020 summer schedule.

The main problem with the BUD longhaul flights is that 98% is point to point travel. There are no connections allowed to other US cities, and on the other end, from BUD star alliance flies to IST (TK), VIE (OS), MUC,FRA (LH), LIS (TP), BRU (SN), ZRH (LX), ATH (A3).
As far as I know from these they only allow connections to/from IST, VIE, ATH. This is about 0-5 passengers each flight.
Air Canada and American makes it better, they have a very wide option of connections for their BUD flights.
I would far prefer if Delta could launch a JFK-BUD flight.

I heard rumors of LO opening their own lounge at LCY which now makes perfect sense with the number of destinations served increasing.

@james

“According to Masiulis, an aid mechanism will be applied to the planned flight for the first time in Europe.

"We'll have the maximum amount set. For example, if the planes fly empty, the maximum amount will be paid. The more the planes are filled, the less we'll have to compensate. If they are full, we won't have to pay anything," Masiulis said.

The Economy Ministry says the maximum amount won't exceed 3 mln euros a year.”

http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/good_for_business/?doc=145451

In some ways, LOT really should dominate -- Poland is the 6th largest country in the EU by population, and by far the largest in eastern Europe. So WAW should be the hub of eastern Europe, and I think that's what they're trying to do. Estonian's flag carrier (Nordica) is actually operated by LOT -- in fact all their flight numbers are LO except the flights from TLL to Russia due to an existing bilateral agreement for Estonia-Russia flights.

However, I booked a TLL-ARN flight for 33 EUR and CPH-TLL was 75 EUR, on Nordica operated by LOT. Sure that's in economy, but that's pretty cheap any way you look at it.

I just hope LOT doesn't expand too fast, as they really could be a big player in Europe and especially eastern Europe, if they manage their expansion well.

Any bets on next US destination for LOT? Maybe WAW-IAD since it's a *A hub and they don't serve it yet?

- LOT serves Hungary and Lithuania
- Adria serves Albania and Kosovo
- EVA Air serves some of the European longhaul for Thai (and other 5th freedom flights by Singapore, Air China, Turkish, Ethiopian, South African)

Star Alliance seems to be trustworthy enough for a number of governments.

This joint venture is rather apropos in a way, because Poland and Lithuania were once together as a single nation hundreds of years ago. Nice to see Vilnius gain a strong connection to the UK.

LOT also flies between CPH and GRQ

I'm Polish Lithuanian, nice to see both agree and cooperate on something for a change.