I’m live-blogging my SAS EuroBonus SkyTeam Million Mile challenge this week. Click here for background and route information.
From Bucharest to Warsaw we flew on a brand new LOT Polish 737 MAX 8 in economy class, enjoying a pleasant flight to the Polish capital city.
LOT Polish 737 MAX 8 Economy Class Review (OTP-WAW)
You might be thinking LOT Polish isn’t SkyTeam…well, that is quite correct and this marked the only diversion from SkyTeam on this whole adventure. I had just flown TAROM from Madrid to Bucharest and had to get to Paris for a morning flight to Tunis, but there were no late-evening nonstop flights on TAROM or Air France.
There was a KLM connection through Amsterdam at 5:25 pm, but we were not set to arrive until 5:14 pm, so that seemed far too ambitious…(turns out we arrived at 4:50 pm at the gate next to the KLM flight, so we could have made that connection, but I already had the KLM part of the Million Mile Challenge booked in Asia).
Our flight was delayed…not that the monitors reflected that or the gate agents made any note of it. But tracking our aircraft, I noticed that it was still in the air even as the posted boarding time came and departed. Thankfully, the flight was only delayed about 30 minutes, and the schedule was padded such that we landed in Warsaw roughly on time.
LOT 646
Bucharest (OTP) – Warsaw (WAW)
November 2024
Depart: 06:25 PM
Arrive: 07:20 PM
Duration: 1hr, 50min
Distance: 575 miles
Aircraft: Boeing 737 MAX 8
Seat: 7C (Economy Class)
The cabin smelled brand new…
Seat
LOT has configured its 737 MAX 8s with 186-189 seats (depending on the lavatory configuration) in a 3-3 configuration. Business class, designated below by the red seat covers versus the blue ones, can be adjusted based on particular flight loads and includes a blocked middle seat.
Seat pitch is on the tighter side, but the upper literature pocket (versus a knee-level one) provides some additional legroom.
Each seat has a USB-A outlet, but there are no A/C power ports under the seats (that’s just not really a thing on European carriers).
An overhead passenger service unit included air vents and reading lights.
I quite liked how the safety card listed the registration numbers of each 737 MAX 8 aircraft.
Food + Drink
I thought that LOT moved to a total buy-on-board concept, but it has not. It does sell alcoholic drinks, snacks, and light meals onboard (with heartier meals available for pre-order, which I failed to do on this flight), but also offers free snacks and drinks.
After the seatbelt light was turned off, flight attendants rolled carts down the aisle, first offering a moist towelette, then offering a “sweet or salty” snack..a pizza loaf or a vanilla cake loaf. Drinks were also offered, though on this flight it was only water, coffee, or tea.
I didn’t eat it…but Augustine said it was delicious.
Wi-Fi + IFE
LOT has no wi-fi or streaming in-flight-entertainment available on its 737 MAX 8 jets.
There was an in-flight magainze…
Lavatories
The aircraft has one lavatory in the front for business class passengers and two in the rear for economy class passengers. Unfortunately, the lavatory was a mess by the time I used it toward the end of the flight (water or some liquid all over the counter and floor).
Service
Service was pleasant onboard, with the flight attendants courteous and efficient in performing their service and then promptly collecting trash.
CONCLUSION
While the lack of wi-fi in 2024 is really off-putting, the flight on LOT Polish was very smooth and I appreciated that the carrier has not gone fully buy-on-board.
It will be interesting to have you rank all of these inter-European flights during this challenge from best to worst.
STFU Aaron
Make me, you useless piece of dribble-p*ss.
Personally my experience is LOT offers it’s best competitive product in economy class.I was disappointed in the biz class long haul offering with weird menus and goofball FA assigned to our Waw-Ord flight.The opposite was true flying economy Mia-WaW.As you point out even on short haul you’re offered a snack and drink,this was true on the one hour hop from Gdansk even.
You know Matthew, I find I am quite enjoying reading about this little adventure of yours.