LOT Polish Airlines
LOT Polish Airlines, legally Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT S.A., is the flag carrier of Poland. A founding member of IATA, it is one of the world's oldest airlines still in operation. With a fleet of 89 aircraft as of January 2026, LOT is Europe's 22nd largest operator by the total number of passengers scheduled, serving 97 destinations across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The airline was founded on 29 December 1928 by the Polish government during the Second Polish Republic as a self-governing limited liability corporation, taking over existing domestic airlines Aerolot and Aero. LOT officially commenced operations on 1 January 1929.
In the 1930s, LOT expanded its domestic and international routes, leading to a network spanning over 10,250km by 1939. It also expanded its fleet, acquiring Douglas DC-2 and Lockheed Electra aircraft, amongst others. The airline moved its operations to the new Warsaw Okęcie Airport in 1934. However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939, led to the suspension of services and the evacuation of most of LOT's aircraft. Post-war, LOT was reestablished in 1945 as a state enterprise, primarily operating Soviet aircraft due to Poland's reemergence as communist state in 1948. Resuming both domestic and international flights, LOT operated a fleet consisting of Ilyushin Il-18, Ilyushin Il-62, Tupolev Tu-134 and Antonov An-24 aircraft. LOT served routes across Europe, the Middle East, and eventually launched transatlantic flights in the early 1970s.
In the post-1989 era, LOT transitioned to Western aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 and also the Boeing 767 for long-haul routes. The airline joined the Star Alliance in 2003. In 2012, LOT became the first European operator of Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Most of LOT's destinations originate from its hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport. Between 2019 and 2025, LOT maintained a year-round, long-haul route connecting Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport to Seoul Incheon International Airport. The airline discontinued this service in March 2025.
History
Pre-war LOT of the Second Republic
When the airline was founded in 1928, Poland's State Treasury held 86% of shares, with the rest belonging to the Province of Silesia and the city of Poznań. In the early 1930s, in addition to existing services from Warsaw to Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk and Lviv, new services to Bydgoszcz and Katowice were introduced. It was also at this point, in 1931, when LOT's well-renowned logo, the "Flying Crane" was picked as the winning entry of the airline's logo design competition.In the same year, the company's first multi-segment international flight along the route Warsaw – Lviv – Czerniowce – Bucharest was launched. In 1932, LOT began flying to Vilnius. In next years there followed services to Berlin, Athens, Helsinki, Budapest, including some waypoints. By 1939 the lines were extended to Beirut, Rome, Copenhagen, reaching. The Douglas DC-2, Lockheed Model 10A Electra and Model 14H Super Electra joined the fleet in 1935, 1936 and 1938 respectively.. Several Polish aircraft designs were tested, but only the single-engined PWS-24 airliner was finally acquired. In 1934, after five years of operating under the LOT name, the airline received new head offices, technical facilities, hangars, workshops, and warehouses located at the new, modern Warsaw Okęcie Airport. This constituted a move from the airline's previous base at Pole Mokotowskie, as this airport had become impossible to operate safely due its gradual absorption into Warsaw's urban and residential areas.
In 1938, LOT changed its name, following that year's Polish spelling reform, from Polskie Linje Lotnicze 'LOT' to Polskie Linie Lotnicze 'LOT'. That same year, a well-publicised transatlantic test flight from Los Angeles to Warsaw via Buenos Aires, Natal and Dakar, aimed at judging the feasibility of introducing passenger service on the Poland-United States route, was successfully executed. There were plans to introduce London and Moscow flights, and even a transatlantic service in 1940. The airline had carried 218,000 passengers before services were suspended due to the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939. Most of LOT's aircraft were subsequently evacuated to Romania, two to the Baltic states, and three L-14Hs to Great Britain. In 1939 LOT had 697 employees, including 25 pilots, most of which were evacuated along with the planes. The 13 airliners that got to Romania were seized by the Romanian government. For the duration of the Second World War, LOT's operations were suspended.
LOT during the Polish People's Republic
After the Soviet occupation of Poland, from August 1944 until December 1945, the Polish Air Force maintained basic transport in the country. From March 1945 there were regular routes maintained by Civil Aviation Department of the Air Force. On 10 March 1945 the Polish Government reintroduced LOT as a state-owned enterprise, which would mainly fly Soviet-built aircraft, owing to the tensions of the Cold War and Poland being a member of the Warsaw Pact. In 1946, seven years after services were first suspended, the airline restarted its operations after receiving ten Soviet-built ex-Air Force Lisunov Li-2Ts, then further passenger Li-2Ps and nine Douglas C-47s. Both domestic and international services restarted that year, first to Berlin, Paris, Stockholm and Prague. In 1947 there were added routes to Bucharest, Budapest, Belgrad and Copenhagen.Five modern, although troublesome SE.161 Languedocs joined the fleet for a short period in 1947–1948, followed by five Ilyushin Il-12Bs in 1949; 13–20 Ilyushin Il-14s then followed in 1955–1957. After the end of Stalinism in Poland, several Western aircraft would be acquired; five Convair 240s in 1957 and three Vickers Viscounts in 1962. These proved to be the last until the 1990s. After that, the composition of the airline's fleet shifted exclusively to Soviet-produced aircraft. Only in 1955 LOT inaugurated services to Moscow, being the centre of the Marxist–Leninist world, and to Vienna. Services to London and Zürich were not re-established until 1958, and to Rome until 1960.
File:Tupolev Tu-134 SP-LGA LOT FRA 28.07.74 edited-2.jpg|thumb|A LOT Tupolev Tu-134 on approach to Frankfurt Airport in 1974.
Nine Ilyushin Il-18 turboprop airliners were introduced in June 1961, leading to the establishment of routes to Africa and the Middle East, and in 1963 LOT expanded its routes to serve Cairo. In the 1970s there were added lines to Baghdad, Beirut, Benghazi, Damascus and Tunis. The Antonov An-24 was delivered from April 1966, followed by the first jet airliners Tupolev Tu-134 in November 1968. The Tu-134s were operated on European routes. The Ilyushin Il-62 long-range jet airliner inaugurate the first transatlantic routes in the history of Polish air transport to Toronto in 1972 as a charter flight and a regular flight to New York City in 1973. LOT began service on its first Far East destination – Bangkok via Dubai and Bombay in 1977.
File:Ilyushin Il-62M, LOT - Polish Airlines - Polskie Linie Lotnicze AN1062039.jpg|thumb|left|A LOT Ilyushin Il-62 at Heathrow Airport in 1984.
In 1977 the airline's current livery designed by Roman Duszek and Andrzej Zbrożek, with the large 'LOT' inscription in blue on the front fuselage, and a blue tailplane was introduced. However, despite livery changes over the years, the 1929-designed Tadeusz Gronowski logo, however, remains the same to this day.
In the autumn of 1981, commercial air traffic in Poland neared collapse in the wake of the communist government's crackdown on dissenters in the country after the rise of the banned Solidarity movement. During this period many Western airlines also suspended their flights to Warsaw. With the 13 December declaration of Martial Law, all LOT connections were suspended. Charter flights to New York and Chicago resumed only in 1984, and eventually, regular flight connections were restored on 28 April 1985. Tupolev Tu-154 mid-range airliners were acquired, after the withdrawal of Il-18 and Tu-134 aircraft from LOT's fleet in the 1980s, and were deployed successively on most European and Middle East routes. In 1986 transatlantic charter flights also reached Detroit and Los Angeles.
Post-1989 LOT Polish Airlines
After the fall of the communist system in Poland in 1989 the fleet shifted back to Western aircraft, beginning with acquisitions of the Boeing 767-200 in April 1989, followed by the Boeing 767-300 in March 1990, ATR 72 in August 1991, Boeing 737-500 in December 1992 and finally the Boeing 737-400 in April 1993. From the mid-1980s to early 1990s LOT flew from Warsaw to Chicago, Edmonton, Montreal, Newark, New York City and Toronto. These routes were primarily inaugurated to serve the large Polish communities in North America.LOT was among the first Central European airlines to operate American aircraft when the Boeing 767 was introduced; the 767s were used to operate LOT's longest-ever connection, to Singapore. By the end of 1989 LOT had hosted that year's IATA congress and reached a milestone annual load-factor of 2.3 million passengers carried over the year.
File:LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767-200; SP-LOB@ZRH;11.05.1997.jpg|thumb|left|LOT's acquisition of long-range Boeing 767s, allowed it to reposition itself as a transit airline. Seen here is a Boeing 767-200 arriving at Zurich Airport in 1997.
In 1990 LOT's third Boeing 767-300 landed at Warsaw Chopin Airport and not long after Boeing 737 and ATR 72 aircraft were acquired for use on LOT's expanded route network, which began to include new international destinations such as Kyiv, Lviv, Minsk and Vilnius. In 1993, LOT began to expand its Western-European operations, inaugurating, in quick succession, flights to Oslo, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf; operations at Poland's other regional airports outside Warsaw were also duly expanded around this time.
In 1994 the airline signed a codesharing agreement with American Airlines on flights to and from Warsaw as well as onward flights in the United States and Poland operated by both companies; flights to Thessaloniki, Zagreb and Nice were inaugurated, and according to an IATA report, in this year LOT had the youngest fleet of any airline in the world. After years of planning, in 1997 LOT set up a sister airline, EuroLOT, which, essentially operating as its parent airline's regional subsidiary, took over domestic flights. The airline was developed with the hope that it would increase transit passenger-flow through Warsaw's Chopin Airport, whilst at the same time providing capacity on routes with smaller load factors and play a part in developing LOT's reputation as the largest transit airline in Central and Eastern Europe. By 1999 LOT had purchased a number of small Embraer 145 regional jets in order to expand its short-haul fleet, and had, with the approval of the Minister of the State Treasury, begun a process of selling shares to the Swiss company SAirGroup Holding; this then led to the airline's incorporation into the then-nascent Qualiflyer Group.
File:LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 737-500, SP-LKE@LHR,05.08.2009-550an - Flickr - Aero Icarus.jpg|thumb|LOT became the eleventh full member of the Star Alliance in 2003. Pictured is a Boeing 737-500 in the alliance's special livery.
Expansion of LOT's route network continued in the early 2000s and the potential of the airline's hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport to become a major transit airport was realised. In 2000 LOT took delivery of its largest-ever order of 11 aircraft, and by 2001 it had reached a milestone passengers-carried figure of 3 million customers in one year; the expansion led to the reconstruction of much of LOT's ground infrastructure, and by 2002 a new central Warsaw head office was opened on Ul. 17 Stycznia. On 26 October 2003, LOT, after the collapse of the Qualiflyer Group, became the 14th member of the Star Alliance. By 2006 a new base of operations, with the reconstruction of Warsaw Chopin Airport, had opened, thus allowing LOT's full transit airline potential to be developed for the first time. The new airport was much larger than any previous airport in Poland. In that same year, Pope Benedict XVI returned to Rome on a LOT flight following his pilgrimage to Poland.
LOT created low-cost arm Centralwings in 2004; however, the company was dissolved and reincorporated into LOT after just five years of operations due to its long-term unprofitability and LOT's desire to redeploy aircraft within its own fleet.