LOT Polish Airlines Ends Budapest Long Haul Flights, Focuses On Warsaw

Your heading says they cut Warsaw to Seoul. But it's Budapest they cut right?

@ JT -- Whoops, indeed, thanks! Fixed.

They also flew to JFK, and a MIA and LAX route was about to be announced but then Covid started.
Also LOT operated some short haul flights from BUD as well, to LCY, BRU, BEG and OTP, offering connections to the long haul network. They were also gone once Covid started.

LO still flies LCY-VNO; the route is subsidized by the Lithuanian government. There have been rumors that it would be cut from time to time, but it hangs on.

FYI - the SQ nonstop flight from FRA to JFK was in existence LONG before the start of Open skies in 2008

At multiple points between 2019 and 2025, LOT did operate BUD-ICN even as much as 5x per week, but never more than that. The increases to the peak frequencies were typically during summer, and moreso before Korean arrived, and less common once Korean began competing more and increasing their frequencies as well. So there were a few instances that there was 10x BUD-ICN a week between the 2 carriers.

We're just hoping now that Koreana steps up to the plate and increases their frequencies on BUD. But also hoping LOT returns to BUD again. Either with ICN, JFK, ORD, BUD HUB, or even try some new ones out of BUD, like: BKK, Phuket, SGN, HAN, NRT/HND. All unserved heavy nonstop demand routes.

BUD-ICN even survived COVID, and even operated during COVID times. And was the last remaining flight of LOT's BUD HUB Build-Up.

LOT had plans to have 35 daily departures out of BUD for 2020. Only JFK and ICN survived. Then JFK was cut, after operating on and off between 2020 and 2022. But JFK operated 7x per week in 2019, and some days there were 2 LOT BUD-JFK flights! In 2018, LOT operated BUD-JFK 4x per week and BUD-ORD 3x per week.

And LOT's ultimate plans for BUD were to make BUD into a HUB nearly the size of WAW. LOT pre-COVID also had plans to make PRG a hub too. They even tried to buy Condor during COVID, but German government blocked it if i remember correctly.

Norse and ex-Norwegian long haul should be mentioned here. Airline based in Scandinavia but operating LAX-ATH and other routes between southern Europe and US. Perfect example of liberalization of long haul flights.

I wouldn't call this a fifth freedom route given it's an ex-EU route operated by an EU carrier. By that logic, almost entire Ryanair network is fifth freedom 🙂

It's a pity that it's getting cancelled but I can understand why. Ex-BUD fares are generally super low (my closest airport is VIE but I fly longhaul from BUD all the time as it usually cuts the price by 500-700€), and there was no connecting network out of BUD. It made sense within the previously planned BUD hub plans (it's sad that covid killed them, that would be a gamechanger) but there's not enough demand to sustain it as a point to point route.

Do we know why LOT gave up on those plans? Now that the pandemic is over, demand is high and WAW hub still full to brim, I'd expect them to get back to it. Central Europe desperately needs a competition for the LHG monopoly and larger LOT would be a great way to achieve that. I believe LOT still has growth plans to become a major airline and that can't be achieved with a single hub model (even if CPK becomes a reality).

Good! Hungary is a terrorist country, supporting Russia.

They actually never flew to EWR from BUD (only to JFK and ORD)!

Ukraine is terrorist, not Hungary or Russia.