LOT Announced New Connection Between Budapest And Kraków

Warsaw, 1 February 2018 - Starting from May LOT is going to operate regular flights between Budapest and Kraków six times a week. Also today, LOT has increased its frequencies on Kraków-Chicago route.

The first flight operated from Kraków to Budapest by LOT is scheduled for 28th of April. Until 20 May LOT will operate on that route five times per week. Starting from 21 May until the end of the summer season, i.e. until 27 October, one more frequency a week will be added. Therefore, LOT passengers will be able to fly six times a week on the Kraków-Budapest route: on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The schedule was planned in such way that the departure flight from the Kraków-Balice Airport is scheduled for 7.55 am and the arrival in the capital city of Hungary is scheduled for 9.00 am. Departure flights from Budapest to Kraków are scheduled for 9.35 am to arrive in Kraków an hour later at 10.35 am. The flights on that route will be operated with Bombardier Q400s with seating capacity of 78 passengers and three travel classes.

Tickets for the flights on the new Budapest-Kraków flight will be on sale one month after LOT announced the increased number of flights to and from Budapest and Warsaw. Just to remind, starting from 25 March the Polish airlines will be operating five daily flights on the Warsaw-Budapest route. Those flights will be mainly operated using Bombardier Q400s, and sporadically also Embraer 170s.

“Hungary is now among LOT’s key Central and Eastern European markets. We strive to ensure the best services and the highest number of available flights to the passengers from the region. Direct flights from Kraków mean not only a greater number of flights to the second largest city in Poland but also connecting flights to other destinations, including Chicago,” says Adrian Kubicki, Director of Corporate Communications.

“Our passengers have told us for a long time that a direct flight to Kraków is high on their wish list. the potential market is more than 30,000 passenger – so it’s great to have finally solved this travel problem for them with our increasingly important partner LOT Polish Airlines,” says Kam Jandu, CCO, Budapest Airport. “The travel time by road is around eight hours by car – the flight time is just over one hour – so that is a significant time-saving for all,” confirms Jandu.

Starting from 3 May LOT Polish Airlines will operate regular flights from Budapest to New York City and from 5 May to Chicago, offering the first direct non-stop service to the U.S. from Hungary for years. Tickets are already going on sale. LOT will be flying from Budapest to New York City 4 times a week on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. The flights to Chicago will be operated twice a week: on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Budapest is now the largest European market without direct flights to the U.S. Every year more than 165,000 passengers fly from the capital city of Hungary to New York City and Chicago transferring at other airports. The situation is bound to change in May. These will be the first direct flights to the USA from outside Poland in the history of LOT. In Budapest LOT is going to station one of its eight wide body state-of-the-art aircraft - B787 Dreamliner.

The convenient schedule of connections on Kraków-Budapest route, increased number of weekly flights between Kraków and Chicago as well as a timetable of long haul flights on Budapest-Chicago route were complemented to provide passengers with the most suitable offer of travels between Kraków, Budapest to Chicago four times a week. All in all LOT will be operating 15 weekly services to/from Chicago: 11 to/from Warsaw Chopin, 2 from Krakow and 2 from Budapest.

“Thanks to the non-stop service between Kraków and Chicago, we enable our passengers to travel directly and most conveniently from Małopolska region to Illinois. Direct flights enriched our offer of long-haul connections between Kraków and Chicago via Warsaw and via Budapest. Since the route launch in 2017, we have been observing increased passenger demand on that route. The most recent data show that over 90 thousand passengers choose to travel by air between Kraków and Chicago annually” – adds Adrian Kubicki.

In 2017 LOT announced the launch of 27 connections, including from Warsaw to: Los Angeles, Newark, Astana and Singapore, from Budapest to New York City and Chicago, from Kraków to Chicago and from Rzeszów to Newark. In 2017 LOT’s passenger traffic totaled 6.8m which means that the figure went up by nearly 1.5m year-to-year. During that time four new Boeings were delivered to LOT: two B787 Dreamliners and two B737 MAXs. In 2018 12 more aircraft will be added to LOT’s fleet: B787-9 (a larger version of the Dreamliner), B737 MAX 8 and Embraer 195.

Tickets for LOT’s new flights from Bu