Charting A Course To The Future

LOT Polish Airlines is in expansion mode and Canada is in line for more service, reports Michael Baginski in this week’s digital edition of Travel Courier.

On his first visit to this country since taking office in January, new LOT CEO Rafal Milczarski told Travel Courier that Canada is a special market for the airline due both to the strong Polish community here and the fact the airline’s first transatlantic flight landed in Toronto (in 1972), even before the US.

“Toronto is a very important route [to LOT]. I think every Polish person loves Canada; everyone in Poland has a member of the family in Canada or the US,” he said.

As such, LOT, which currently has five flights a week between Toronto and Warsaw will jump to seven over the holidays, settling back to six a week by March, 2017.

However, “our strategy in the future will be to have seven flights per week in Toronto,” Milczarski said, noting that includes winter service.

Toronto is one of three North American gateways for LOT in North America, including New York-JFK and Chicago.

Plans have already been announced for the airline to return to Newark on April 28, 2017, and last week the airline said it will also commence four-times weekly service to Los Angeles starting in April, 2017.

By 2020, Milczarski speculates that Western Canada (believed to be Vancouver) is “likely” to have a LOT flight.

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Travel Courier by clicking here.