Polish carrier LOT, a Star Alliance member, is creating a hub…outside of Poland. The flag carrier is slowly but steadily expanding operations in Budapest, Hungary.
LOT already serves Chicago (ORD), Krakow (KRK), London (LCY), New York (JFK), and Warsaw (WAW) from Budapest (BUD).
LOT plans to establish an Embraer E195 base in Budapest, where it recently added flights to Brussels (BRU) and Bucharest (OTP) in the schedule. Those new flights will begin on September 02, 2019. LOT sees the low-cost competition in Budapest, but also sees an opening for full-service airlines. Another carrier did not rise up when Malev, the defunct flag carrier of Hungary, went bust in 2012, creating an opportunity which still lingers today.
LOT Polish Airlines CEO Rafał Milczarski told ATW:
With these new flights we will start developing transfer traffic via Budapest Airport. That applies to passengers from Bucharest, who connect in Budapest, i.e., to London City, New York and Chicago, as well as to Brussels. The offer of transit connections will definitely increase the attractiveness of Budapest Airport.
More LOT Expansion
LOT carried 8.2 million passengers in 2018 and hopes to carry 10 million in 2019. To that end, it will take delivery of nine additional Boeing 737 MAX aircraft this year (it already has five in the fleet). It will also add four 787s to increase its Dreamliner fleet to 15. Throw in its 34 Embraer regional jets and LOT is well-positioned to continue its growth.
CONCLUSION
Recognizing the downward pressure on pricing from Wizz Air and Ryanair, LOT must be very careful not to expand too ambitiously. But from the comfort of my armchair, it certainly seems like a smart move to fill the void still lingering from Malev in one of Central Europe’s most vibrant cities.
image: LOT Polish
LOT’s main hub, Warsaw, has capacity issues, thus until a new airport is built (or the current one expanded) it will need to diversify its sources of growth (already operating longhaul flights from three Polish cities and a regional hub in Tallinn, Estonia).
Hungary painfully felt the lack of a national airline (not a single flight to North America before LOT’s decision in 2017) and at the time was in talks with Polish government to find a solution. Great bond between these two nations is definitely an additional help for the airline.
Consolidation times are coming in the aviation industry. Either you become a global carrier serving many countries (like Lufthansa Group or IAG) or you will become extinct like airberlin.
LOT offers a good product at a sensible price. My one and only gripe with them is the awful seats on the 7M8 especially at the front, they are actually worse than the LH NEK seats with far too short a seat cushion for anyone over 100cm tall.
Threatening competition of WizAir? A sad joke, for anyone who has used WizzAir. Our family have last summer, it was a costly and painful (physically) mistake. They required to pre-check online, but their website was co convoluted that I was just running circles in it. Then, at the airport they charged several hundred $’s for “failing to check in online”. Before the returning flight from Budapest, after a long delay, they announced the boarding. All the passengers were hoarded into a hot hangar and kept there, standing, for 45 minutes. I asked WizzAir people to provide a chair for my wife who had back pains and could not be standing any more. They told me: “There is a large concrete block at the hangar’s entrance, she can sit there.” Beside that “comfort”, that would mean going back to the end of the line, after more than two hours of waiting. Hungarians are very nice people, WizzAir seems to be a dark spot on their image.