LOT Polish Airlines
LOT Polish Airlines, legally Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT S.A. (Polish pronunciation: [l?t], flight), is the flag carrier airline of Poland. A founding member of IATA, it is one of the world's oldest airlines still in operation. With a fleet of 96 aircraft as of July 2026, LOT is Europe's 22nd largest operator by the total number of passengers scheduled, serving 102 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 (founded in 1922) and Aero (founded in 1925). LOT officially commenced operations on 1 January 1929. In the 1930s, LOT rapidly expanded its network and modernized its fleet, moving to the new Warsaw Ok?cie Airport in 1934. The outbreak of World War II forced the suspension of operations, but the airline was reestablished in 1945 as a state enterprise. Reflecting Poland's status as a communist state, the post-war fleet relied exclusively on Soviet-built aircraft. During this era, LOT rebuilt its European and Middle Eastern routes, eventually launching transatlantic flights in the early 1970s. In the post-1989 era, LOT transitioned to Western aircraft. The airline joined Star Alliance in 2003, and in 2012, it became the first European operator of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Most of LOT's destinations originate from its hub at Warsaw Chopin Airport.
Key facts
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" (designed by the graphic artist Tadeusz Gronowski, and still in use today) 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 10,250 km (6,370 mi). The Douglas DC-2, Lockheed Model 10A Electra and Model 14H Super Electra joined the fleet in 1935, 1936 and 1938 respectively. (During this period, LOT had 10 Lockheed 10As, 10 Lockheed 14s, 3 DC-2s and 1 Ju 52/3mge). 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 (Przedsiębiorstwo Państwowe Polskie Linie Lotnicze 'LOT'), 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.
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 (20 used, on domestic routes), followed by the first jet airliners Tupolev Tu-134 in November 1968 (which coincided with the opening of a new international terminal at Warsaw's Okęcie Airport). 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.
Its airports
Its main hubs
Airports that list it on their own website
These airports include this airline in the carrier list on their official website.
Route network according to OpenFlights (open route database). It may not reflect recent schedule changes.
Data from Wikidata (CC0) · summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
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This page was last updated on September 26, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, September 26). LOT Polish Airlines. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines
MLA
“LOT Polish Airlines.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 26 Sept. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “LOT Polish Airlines.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified September 26, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) LOT Polish Airlines. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines (Accessed: 16 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_airline_lot_polish_airlines,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{LOT Polish Airlines}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-09-26},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines}},
urldate = {2026-10-16},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/airline/lot-polish-airlines |title=LOT Polish Airlines |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-09-26 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}Types it operates · 84 aircraft · 8 models
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