User001 wrote:

The ACL slot report shows that LOT are interested in starting 14 new European routes, including Tirana, Dublin and Manchester. Whether they all happen is an entirely different matter all together however.

Tirana makes a lot of sense, that is a gap in the Balkan network and given constraints on international traffic into Albania, the fares are often decent, should translate into good yields. There is always a shortage of decent connections to and from Tirana. Polish tourists are also coming in high numbers, the country is talked about among friends, interest growing, which is bound to help fill those seats.

Ι wish they would start WAW-SKG...There is high demand esp..in summer,as Polish tourists flood Halkidiki beaches and greeks fly to Poland for tourism and recreation..Their Ejets would be perfect for the route..Now there is only a 2w route with FR and lots of charters with LOT, Enter and Travel Service. The airport is dominated by Star Alliance carriers,with A3,LH,LX,OS,SK,TK..LO is missing from the puzzle..Athens on the contrary is covered daily by A3 and FR...

LOT should join Oneworld or SkyTeam sooner than later. There are too many Star Alliance airlines in Europe, and United only works with Lufthansa. They don't even get along with Singapore Airlines or Turkish Airlines, which both fly to Newark (Turkish next year) without any code-sharing or cooperation from United. Same story there with LOT. It's absurd. Austrian is dying (getting killed ) in front of our eyes with the blessing of LH, for the benefit of the mother vampire and LX. Air Berlin and Malev are urban legends now, so Oneworld has a massive void in continental Europe, stretching from London to Moscow. Heathrow is maxed out, Finnair is in the North Pole, and Iberia is useless for anything other than Europe - South America. CSA has been the definition of "the living dead" for years, and will most likely stay that way (in its best case scenario). This is a great opportunity for LO.

OceanAir wrote:

LOT should join Oneworld or SkyTeam sooner than later. There are too many Star Alliance airlines in Europe, and United only works with Lufthansa. They don't even get along with Singapore Airlines or Turkish Airlines, which both fly to Newark (Turkish next year) without any code-sharing or cooperation from United. Same story there with LOT. It's absurd. Austrian is dying (getting killed ) in front of our eyes with the blessing of LH, for the benefit of the mother vampire and LX. Air Berlin and Malev are urban legends now, so Oneworld has a massive void in continental Europe, stretching from London to Moscow. Heathrow is maxed out, Finnair is in the North Pole, and Iberia is useless for anything other than Europe - South America. CSA has been the definition of "the living dead" for years, and will most likely stay that way (in its best case scenario). This is a great opportunity for LO.

I couldn’t agree more with you! It’s the perfect opportunity for LOT with the holes being created in and around Central Europe. The question is how much would it cost for LOT to leave SA? Tens or hundreds of millions of US$$$, something LOT really doesn’t have much. If LOT would go with Oneworld and work with American Airlines it could possibly evenly split KRK and open up more flights to JFK and other places. Again problem is money and aircraft issues.

SRQLOT wrote:

OceanAir wrote:

LOT should join Oneworld or SkyTeam sooner than later. There are too many Star Alliance airlines in Europe, and United only works with Lufthansa. They don't even get along with Singapore Airlines or Turkish Airlines, which both fly to Newark (Turkish next year) without any code-sharing or cooperation from United. Same story there with LOT. It's absurd. Austrian is dying (getting killed ) in front of our eyes with the blessing of LH, for the benefit of the mother vampire and LX. Air Berlin and Malev are urban legends now, so Oneworld has a massive void in continental Europe, stretching from London to Moscow. Heathrow is maxed out, Finnair is in the North Pole, and Iberia is useless for anything other than Europe - South America. CSA has been the definition of "the living dead" for years, and will most likely stay that way (in its best case scenario). This is a great opportunity for LO.

I couldn’t agree more with you! It’s the perfect opportunity for LOT with the holes being created in and around Central Europe. The question is how much would it cost for LOT to leave SA? Tens or hundreds of millions of US$$$, something LOT really doesn’t have much. If LOT would go with Oneworld and work with American Airlines it could possibly evenly split KRK and open up more flights to JFK and other places. Again problem is money and aircraft issues.

This topic comes up regularly. Finnair is one issue, especially since LOT sees its future in the Asian markets -- Finnair might arguably be better at courting partnerships and have an easier time securing overflight rights. Given the size of Polish economy (and its growth rate) this may well change, but we're not there yet. JVs are a curse for all smaller carriers, and this is bound to be the case in One World too -- AA/IAG will push their own metal, getting feed on the US side will still be very difficult. And then there is Miles and More, which is a nonstarter programme, but LOT is bound to it, with its FFTs data belonging to the LH Group. My sense is that the bosses at LOT realise their predicament -- if it makes sense, they'll jump ship. I hope they do.

As far as I remember not long ago LOT had an opportunity to leave Star without any financial penalty but LOT didn’t take it up. IMHO leaving Star or not LOT should first disentangle from Miles and More but probably this would involve pretty significant costs too.

konkret wrote:

As far as I remember not long ago LOT had an opportunity to leave Star without any financial penalty but LOT didn’t take it up. IMHO leaving Star or not LOT should first disentangle from Miles and More but probably this would involve pretty significant costs too.

This was 5+ years ago I believe. Most of the airlines I previously mentioned were still flying and LOT was a fraction of its size. Poland changed too. But they definitely need to get out of Miles and More. People also thought Brexit was impossible..

OceanAir wrote:

konkret wrote:

As far as I remember not long ago LOT had an opportunity to leave Star without any financial penalty but LOT didn’t take it up. IMHO leaving Star or not LOT should first disentangle from Miles and More but probably this would involve pretty significant costs too.

This was 5+ years ago I believe. Most of the airlines I previously mentioned were still flying and LOT was a fraction of its size. Poland changed too. But they definitely need to get out of Miles and More. People also thought Brexit was impossible..

They had untill December 31st, 2015 to leave without the penalty, you are right that LOT was in a different situation then (+ Air Berlin was still around).

konkret wrote:

OceanAir wrote:

konkret wrote:

As far as I remember not long ago LOT had an opportunity to leave Star without any financial penalty but LOT didn’t take it up. IMHO leaving Star or not LOT should first disentangle from Miles and More but probably this would involve pretty significant costs too.

This was 5+ years ago I believe. Most of the airlines I previously mentioned were still flying and LOT was a fraction of its size. Poland changed too. But they definitely need to get out of Miles and More. People also thought Brexit was impossible..

They had untill December 31st, 2015 to leave without the penalty, you are right that LOT was in a different situation then (+ Air Berlin was still around).

Perhaps it's in the works? They are aggressive in their strategy and I would think that securing feed across the Atlantic from a US carrier is a priority. Same for Asia. They don't get that in *A. Then again other carriers stick around, like TK for instance.

User001 wrote:

For posterity full list of routes LOT has applied to the ACL for slots starting Summer 20 are:

Athens, Rome, Moscow, Dublin, Manchester, Tirana, Chania, Frankovsk, Santorini, Kos, Ostrava, Rijeka and Rimini.

Long haul have applied for Cancun and San Francisco.

All from Warsaw as taken from the WAW slot report.

Tirana and Rijeka officially confirmed for Summer 2020.

I see that WAW-TIA is operated once a week, on Saturdays. So basically it's a glorified charter flight.

WAW-TIA 13.45-15.55
TIA-WAW 16.45-18.55

Blerg wrote:

I see that WAW-TIA is operated once a week, on Saturdays. So basically it's a glorified charter flight.

WAW-TIA 13.45-15.55
TIA-WAW 16.45-18.55

The same is true for some other summer destinations, like Rijeka or Corfu.

Colombo - unlucky today as the Dreamliner has engine problems and is stuck there for the moment - was also launched knowing that travel agencies will buy packages and cover large part of the costs. Pure PR move.

LOT starts 5x weekly WAW-OSR (Ostrava) from 30.03.2019.

desmoLCY wrote:

LOT starts 5x weekly WAW-OSR (Ostrava) from 30.03.2019.

Many customers from Ostrava already use LOT from Katowice (1 hour driving time away) or Kraków (1h30min). I hope they offer open-jaw fares with departure/return from/to KTW complementary to the daily OSR flight (e.g. departure from OSR, return to KTW).

desmoLCY wrote:

LOT starts 5x weekly WAW-OSR (Ostrava) from 30.03.2019.

A while ago Ostrava offered subsidies for flights to Vienna or Munich. I guess there were no takers so when LO contacted them they redirected the funds.

Blerg wrote:

desmoLCY wrote:

LOT starts 5x weekly WAW-OSR (Ostrava) from 30.03.2019.

A while ago Ostrava offered subsidies for flights to Vienna or Munich. I guess there were no takers so when LO contacted them they redirected the funds.

Great news for Ostrava and LOT to keep growing in the region and getting 1.67mil Zloty or US$400,000 a year although not much will help. I do remember back then depending on the article that WAW was or was not in the original push for hub flights. This article says that they offered the subsidy to LOT in June.
https://www.rynek-lotniczy.pl/mobile/pl ... -7305.html

Blerg wrote:

desmoLCY wrote:

LOT starts 5x weekly WAW-OSR (Ostrava) from 30.03.2019.

A while ago Ostrava offered subsidies for flights to Vienna or Munich. I guess there were no takers so when LO contacted them they redirected the funds.

This was actually in parallel. They spoke to LO and at the same time organised a PSO to Vienna/Munich. LO also gets subsidies on this route, but much smaller (up to about 380k EUR yearly).

LO was supposed to open this route already last year, but because of MAX issue it was postponed. Strange schedule showing there are very little slots available in WAW. Specially that there is no early morning flight from OSR.

It also seems nobody ventured for the PSO (it is actually rumoured that there was one bidder - Adria:). This happened for a second time in a row, so a real failure.

simpleflying is reporting that SP-LRG is stuck in Colombo due to a malfunction in the poppet valve.
232 pax and 15 crew were onboard.

https://simpleflying.com/lot-colombo-boeing-787/

lyngbyvej wrote:

Blerg wrote:

I see that WAW-TIA is operated once a week, on Saturdays. So basically it's a glorified charter flight.

WAW-TIA 13.45-15.55
TIA-WAW 16.45-18.55

The same is true for some other summer destinations, like Rijeka or Corfu.

Colombo - unlucky today as the Dreamliner has engine problems and is stuck there for the moment - was also launched knowing that travel agencies will buy packages and cover large part of the costs. Pure PR move.

Certainly LO would love to sell part of the seats to travel agencies, but they had no sh charter flights from WAW last year. So it is not like Colombo shifting from charter to a scheduled flight. I also looked into offer for packaged holidays in Albania and they have different departure dates from WAW than LO's flight. I therefore think most of the clients will be individual tourists and I smell here subsidies from an Albanian tourism board.

My guess is they are somehow sounding the market. They already started seasonal tourist flights to Varna, Turin (now discontinued) and this year TIA, and all that, slots permitting, could in the future develope into flights for other pax groups.

emre787 wrote:

simpleflying is reporting that SP-LRG is stuck in Colombo due to a malfunction in the poppet valve.
232 pax and 15 crew were onboard.

https://simpleflying.com/lot-colombo-boeing-787/

Yep this was in the polish news yesterday. I read 47 passengers returned with LOT from Colombo the next day, the rest were flown out earlier. So it seems LOT is trying to accommodate passengers with other options which is great. The rest got a really nice night in very nice hotels.

I actually wonder how successful LO would be in Tirana. The market is quite competitive with Aegean, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines all offering more than daily departures in a market that barely serves three million. Also, WAW would be the longest flight to a transfer hub meaning they would be at an disadvantage there as well. Not to mention that they would struggle finding slots unless they cut something else in order to launch TIA.

LOT is launching Ostrava from WAW effective 30/03/20. Will be 5 times a week with DH4/E70/E75.
Apart from Ryanair's flights to Stansted, these will be the only scheduled passenger flights from this airport.

Blerg wrote:

I actually wonder how successful LO would be in Tirana. The market is quite competitive with Aegean, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines all offering more than daily departures in a market that barely serves three million. Also, WAW would be the longest flight to a transfer hub meaning they would be at an disadvantage there as well. Not to mention that they would struggle finding slots unless they cut something else in order to launch TIA.

I think they are looking into this not to stay much behind others, and keep themselves in the loop, but for now this is not anything specially attractive for them. Like a year ago I read an interview with their head of planning and he said they were not looking after getting more feed for their US flights as the current pax streams were absolutely OK. And I am not sure if there would be much interest in TIA to fly lh other than main US destinations. And TIA is too small market, too far away and too much to the south for LO to successfully propose sh transfers in Europe via WAW of the type LO proposes to pax from Ukraine, Baltics, Czechia or Slovakia, ie flying via WAW in both directions you start early in the morning and come back home at night after a full business day somewhere in Europe. In all these destinations LO has an aircraft staying overnight and departing to WAW very early in the morning. Because of the geographical location, it should be rather Air Serbia job to do it in TIA.

Blerg wrote:

I actually wonder how successful LO would be in Tirana. The market is quite competitive with Aegean, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines all offering more than daily departures in a market that barely serves three million. Also, WAW would be the longest flight to a transfer hub meaning they would be at an disadvantage there as well. Not to mention that they would struggle finding slots unless they cut something else in order to launch TIA.

Flying Aegean or Turkish is a bit of a detour for Polish people going on holidays to Albania.
At the moment LO is not going after transfer traffic to/from Tirana.
It is a seasonal, once a week flight, so clearly geared towards tourists.

konkret wrote:

Blerg wrote:

I actually wonder how successful LO would be in Tirana. The market is quite competitive with Aegean, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines all offering more than daily departures in a market that barely serves three million. Also, WAW would be the longest flight to a transfer hub meaning they would be at an disadvantage there as well. Not to mention that they would struggle finding slots unless they cut something else in order to launch TIA.

Flying Aegean or Turkish is a bit of a detour for Polish people going on holidays to Albania.
At the moment LO is not going after transfer traffic to/from Tirana.
It is a seasonal, once a week flight, so clearly geared towards tourists.

I wasn't speaking about the one weekly frequency which I already referred to as a glorified charter flight. I am speaking in general if they ever decide to try and position themselves in Albania as one of the relevant players there.

Blerg wrote:

I actually wonder how successful LO would be in Tirana. The market is quite competitive with Aegean, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines all offering more than daily departures in a market that barely serves three million. Also, WAW would be the longest flight to a transfer hub meaning they would be at an disadvantage there as well. Not to mention that they would struggle finding slots unless they cut something else in order to launch TIA.

During the summer (writ large) TIA fares can be unusually high -- airport fees are high too, dampening competition. TIA is the only airport in the country free to fly international traffic. I think TIA badly needs more carriers and seats, and LO should develop this market well, especially with a view to transfers to anywhere north and west of Poland (especially Scandinavia, Germany, Benelux and UK, but also US and Canada).

LOT is ending two weekly WAW-PUY.

https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/11/lo ... rvice.html

Blerg wrote:

konkret wrote:

Blerg wrote:

I actually wonder how successful LO would be in Tirana. The market is quite competitive with Aegean, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Alitalia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines all offering more than daily departures in a market that barely serves three million. Also, WAW would be the longest flight to a transfer hub meaning they would be at an disadvantage there as well. Not to mention that they would struggle finding slots unless they cut something else in order to launch TIA.

Flying Aegean or Turkish is a bit of a detour for Polish people going on holidays to Albania.
At the moment LO is not going after transfer traffic to/from Tirana.
It is a seasonal, once a week flight, so clearly geared towards tourists.

I wasn't speaking about the one weekly frequency which I already referred to as a glorified charter flight. I am speaking in general if they ever decide to try and position themselves in Albania as one of the relevant players there.

Sorry I missed your point - you are 100% correct - LO would be at a big disadvantage and I hope they are smart enough to recognise this.

Another charter-like connections.
Once a week (Sundays) flights from BUD to DBV and VAR as of 7 June 2020 until 27 September 2020.

https://www.pasazer.com/news/42740/lot, ... warny.html

I am surprised neither W6 nor FR ever considered launching DBV from BUD.

lyngbyvej wrote:

Another charter-like connections.
Once a week (Sundays) flights from BUD to DBV and VAR as of 7 June 2020 until 27 September 2020.

https://www.pasazer.com/news/42740/lot, ... warny.html

Better this than staying on the tarmac on Sunday, when there are less flights to PRG and STR.

According to the same source, BUD-ICN increased from 3 to 4 weekly since May 2020.

According to ACL-UK.ORG slots for WAW-MAN in a fashion typical for LO when starting connections for business pax, ie 12 flights weekly (probably Saturday only morning to WAW and Sunday only evening to MAN).

Any Ideas when LOT May announce WAW-DUB?
They hold slots for a daily flight next summer

EIEIDW wrote:

Any Ideas when LOT May announce WAW-DUB?
They hold slots for a daily flight next summer

They could be waiting untill 737 MAX are flying again.

konkret wrote:

EIEIDW wrote:

Any Ideas when LOT May announce WAW-DUB?
They hold slots for a daily flight next summer

They could be waiting untill 737 MAX are flying again.

But wouldn't that be too much capacity to start a brand new route? Maybe something smaller like E75 or E95 would be better?

Blerg wrote:

konkret wrote:

EIEIDW wrote:

Any Ideas when LOT May announce WAW-DUB?
They hold slots for a daily flight next summer

They could be waiting untill 737 MAX are flying again.

But wouldn't that be too much capacity to start a brand new route? Maybe something smaller like E75 or E95 would be better?

No the 737 MAX Wouldn’t operate the route, most likely a 737-800 which at the moment they may not have due to the MAX groundings

EIEIDW wrote:

Blerg wrote:

konkret wrote:

They could be waiting untill 737 MAX are flying again.

But wouldn't that be too much capacity to start a brand new route? Maybe something smaller like E75 or E95 would be better?

No the 737 MAX Wouldn’t operate the route, most likely a 737-800 which at the moment they may not have due to the MAX groundings

To me it seems as if DUB would be operated by E195. This is in line with their slot award in DUB (around 122 pax per operation).

As a counter-measure Ryanair just announced increasing WMI-DUB to 9 weekly during the summer season. So we will see what happens. This route seems to be far from easy for LO and not a very typical route for them.

Because of the MAX issue LO has to delay new routes from BUD, which will be all E-195 operated (between 26 March and 26 May: STR, SOF, OTP only six weekly, BRU seven weekly, PRG and BEG to start only 27 May).

https://www.rynek-lotniczy.pl/wiadomosc ... -7326.html

This is because the 4 E195 to be based in BUD are now flying on routes, that should have been operated by MAX / are still pending delivery to LO.

Why cant they lease more E-195s, especially now that airlines like Azul, Helvetic will be phasing out their E1jets for E2-jets...And then there are the jetblue and aircanada E190 that will be available

marcogr12 wrote:

Why cant they lease more E-195s, especially now that airlines like Azul, Helvetic will be phasing out their E1jets for E2-jets...And then there are the jetblue and aircanada E190 that will be available

It is rumoured that LO will be leasing some of the post-Azul E195s, but Azul only started to take E2. In 2018 when LO was taking first post-Azul E195s, there was a substantial delay in delivery of those, resulting in problems (delays) during the peak summer season as those were already scheduled by LO. Probably they are not going to make the same error now and just wait with scheduling them. Another point is how many can they really take, given how slot constrained WAW is and that MAX will eventually come.

artflyer wrote:

EIEIDW wrote:

Blerg wrote:

But wouldn't that be too much capacity to start a brand new route? Maybe something smaller like E75 or E95 would be better?

No the 737 MAX Wouldn’t operate the route, most likely a 737-800 which at the moment they may not have due to the MAX groundings

To me it seems as if DUB would be operated by E195. This is in line with their slot award in DUB (around 122 pax per operation).

As a counter-measure Ryanair just announced increasing WMI-DUB to 9 weekly during the summer season. So we will see what happens. This route seems to be far from easy for LO and not a very typical route for them.

Because of the MAX issue LO has to delay new routes from BUD, which will be all E-195 operated (between 26 March and 26 May: STR, SOF, OTP only six weekly, BRU seven weekly, PRG and BEG to start only 27 May).

https://www.rynek-lotniczy.pl/wiadomosc ... -7326.html

This is because the 4 E195 to be based in BUD are now flying on routes, that should have been operated by MAX / are still pending delivery to LO.

The issue with Modlin is well... It's Modlin. LO will probably hope to get people that don't want to trek out of Warszawa on relatively slow public transport or roads.

pdp wrote:

artflyer wrote:

EIEIDW wrote:

No the 737 MAX Wouldn’t operate the route, most likely a 737-800 which at the moment they may not have due to the MAX groundings

To me it seems as if DUB would be operated by E195. This is in line with their slot award in DUB (around 122 pax per operation).

As a counter-measure Ryanair just announced increasing WMI-DUB to 9 weekly during the summer season. So we will see what happens. This route seems to be far from easy for LO and not a very typical route for them.

Because of the MAX issue LO has to delay new routes from BUD, which will be all E-195 operated (between 26 March and 26 May: STR, SOF, OTP only six weekly, BRU seven weekly, PRG and BEG to start only 27 May).

https://www.rynek-lotniczy.pl/wiadomosc ... -7326.html

This is because the 4 E195 to be based in BUD are now flying on routes, that should have been operated by MAX / are still pending delivery to LO.

The issue with Modlin is well... It's Modlin. LO will probably hope to get people that don't want to trek out of Warszawa on relatively slow public transport or roads.

That's true, although Modlin and Ryanair's prices are cheaper, making it more accessible for the population of the surrounding region. The majority of PL-IE traffic is VFR, and while the proportion of business travellers (as well as relatively wealthier VFR/tourists) flying from WAW may be higher than from other Polish airports, it remains to be seen if it is enough to fill up LOT's planes at their undoubtedly higher fares. That said, this is a route I've been hoping for for a while, and I hope LOT manages to announce it for the summer season and succeeds in it.

artflyer wrote:

EIEIDW wrote:

Blerg wrote:

But wouldn't that be too much capacity to start a brand new route? Maybe something smaller like E75 or E95 would be better?

No the 737 MAX Wouldn’t operate the route, most likely a 737-800 which at the moment they may not have due to the MAX groundings

To me it seems as if DUB would be operated by E195. This is in line with their slot award in DUB (around 122 pax per operation).

As a counter-measure Ryanair just announced increasing WMI-DUB to 9 weekly during the summer season. So we will see what happens. This route seems to be far from easy for LO and not a very typical route for them.

Because of the MAX issue LO has to delay new routes from BUD, which will be all E-195 operated (between 26 March and 26 May: STR, SOF, OTP only six weekly, BRU seven weekly, PRG and BEG to start only 27 May).

https://www.rynek-lotniczy.pl/wiadomosc ... -7326.html

This is because the 4 E195 to be based in BUD are now flying on routes, that should have been operated by MAX / are still pending delivery to LO.

Sorry, my mistake: slots for 122 pax per operation are for MAN, not DUB. Actually I think LO would use MAX for DUB. This would put them in a better competitive position versus Ryanair.

So MAN will be E195s? This Midlander likes the sound of that!

According to MAN ACL, LOT intend to use 2 daily E195 for the WAW route

You can check BUD long haul statistics for 3Q19 here

https://budflyer.blog.hu/2019/12/02/a_h ... jesitmenye

parrotta wrote:

You can check BUD long haul statistics for 3Q19 here

https://budflyer.blog.hu/2019/12/02/a_h ... jesitmenye

Seems JFK is performing ok, but Chicago is definitely not. They’re cutting it, right?

tomgle wrote:

parrotta wrote:

You can check BUD long haul statistics for 3Q19 here

https://budflyer.blog.hu/2019/12/02/a_h ... jesitmenye

Seems JFK is performing ok, but Chicago is definitely not. They’re cutting it, right?

I think so, initially it was supposed to be summer seasonal but then in the end they cut it altogether.

Blerg wrote:

tomgle wrote:

parrotta wrote:

You can check BUD long haul statistics for 3Q19 here

https://budflyer.blog.hu/2019/12/02/a_h ... jesitmenye

Seems JFK is performing ok, but Chicago is definitely not. They’re cutting it, right?

I think so, initially it was supposed to be summer seasonal but then in the end they cut it altogether.

BUD-ORD by Lot was 2x weekly and cancelled many times due to the 787 engine problems and meant to be seasonal. LO will increase BUD-JFK 7x weekly and AA wil launch seasonal 6x weekly ORD-BUD from May.

Off topic, but I wasn’t sure where else to post this: an RAF Airbus KC2 Voyager (modified A330) just took off from Warsaw, heading to the UK. Anyone know what it was doing there?

tomgle wrote:

Off topic, but I wasn’t sure where else to post this: an RAF Airbus KC2 Voyager (modified A330) just took off from Warsaw, heading to the UK. Anyone know what it was doing there?

UK Embassy supply flight, perhaps? Those are usually handled by military transports, AFAIK...

ek241yyz wrote:

Milka wrote:

artflyer wrote:

In September they take delivery of one more 789, but that one was already taken into account, when planning the winter season (in particular on 11th Sept they start New Dehli route 5x weekly). Further deliveries will take place in 2020.

For me it means they expect an issue around Dreamliner RR engines to be resolved by the winter season (LOT has three 788s grounded due to this issue, with only two replaced by ACMI).

LOT has two more 789 on order for a total of 16 Dreamliner's currently, I wouldn't be surprised if they order a couple more in the future. Also right now two 788 are stored awaiting new engines SP-LRD and SP-LRH, these are covered by two leased Air Belgium A340s.

They will order more; they just do it in batches. 787-10s were thought about, maybe they will come by?? Who knows.

As for routes, BKK & SGN are in the works for sure. Today they announced flights to Daxing, the new airport in Beijing making their total flights to Beijing 1x daily (they will split between Daxing & PEK)

And in 2020 YUL will also start. They've been trying to get YUL started for ages, 2 years ago they came close but the airport wouldn't give them their preferred time slots...
Now I heard "slots" were agreed upon.
Personal guess here, I anticipate an April-June 2020 start.
Official word probably later in the year.

What happened to LOT starting YUL? Still planned for 2020 or now moved to 2021?