How would you rate LOT airlines

jlkelman, we flew LOT in 2013, ORD to Warsaw and return. No problems - it was a brand new 787 Dreamliner. Service was fine. I will say that the return boarding process was a bit disorganized, but that was in Warsaw.

But we picked LOT because they were the only direct flights from US to Warsaw. We would have flown one of the major US lines if we had the option.

I am curious if the cost is significantly different than other options. Assuming ORD is your home airport, I would prefer United/Lufthansa from ORD to FRA, just because they have more flights/day in case something goes wrong.

I flew them from JFK to Krakow (via Warsaw) and Warsaw back to JFK, a few years ago (don't have exact date here at work, but can check when I get home if you need it).

The flights were fine, on a new 787 Dreamliner as posted above. Connecting in Warsaw was easy, except that IMMEDIATELY after passport control you go through security to get to your connecting flight. If I had known this, I would have been prepared to remove my laptop and 3-1-1 bag, take my belt off, etc. The Warsaw airport is not large, so otherwise dealing with it is much easier than Heathrow, CDG, etc. The domestic connection WAW to KRK was on a propeller plane; I know some mind these, but I didn't (the flight is quite short). From WAW to FRA should be on a jet, but do check if this is important to you.

Another feature I liked was that they offer Premium Economy for about $215 more than regular economy. These seats are wider and nicer - it's not just more legroom (there's that too), because regular economy has 2-3-2 seating and Premium Economy has 2-2-2 seating. I didn't take advantage on my flight, but might do so in the future.

Short version: they're fine and I'd definitely fly them again!

Stan, they are significantly cheaper and seem to have the most flights from Chicago to Frankfurt. I was surprised at this and wanted to check in case they are the route we end up going. What seems weird to me is sometimes when I look there are no direct flights from Chicago to Frankfurt, they are all at least one stop. Other times just a few flights that are non-stop. I would have thought with the 2 very large airports non-stop would have been more prevalent.

jlkelman, what website are you using?

I use orbitz for my research.

jlkelman, I am not an expert at this, but I played around with Orbitz, United website and LOT website picking some random dates in May. From that, I don't believe there are any LOT flights non-stop from ORD to FRA; they all require stop and change in Warsaw. United has three direct flights a day, some codeshare with Lufthansa, although they are not the cheapest. I guess you would be trading cost for convenience. However, Its still early. Last year there were some huge airfare sales in the fall, although you can never predict those. As I said, I had good experience with LOT, but hard to believe there are no lower cost direct flight options.

Sorry Stan I think I miscommunicated. LOT had no direct but significantly cheaper, and not a ton of direct flights. What there were was significantly more expensive. Not in a rush so will keep checking. Just glad to know the airline was fine should we choose to go that route.

I have flown LOT and have found their service to be excellent. Starting in 2018, they will offer the only non-stop service from the United States to Budapest. You may want to look at that option as well. I think they have already started promotional fares.

The airline is functional, it works, aircraft are very modern, all-grey interiors (with some blue). Connecting in Warsaw is easy although of course to get from Chicago to Frankfurt and Prague it involves at least 1 hour of back tracking per leg (so 2 extra flight hours per direction plus the time for the aircraft change in Warsaw).

On their intra-European flights they are like a low-cost airline apart from the fact that water is free (and you can't really buy a lot of other beverages).

In 2015, we flew LOT to Warsaw, and then on to Zagreb. They left Chicago a full 1.5 hours late. We were concerned about making our connection to Zagreb. In Warsaw, we were taken quickly to a small holding area, and then moved on to the plane, which was being held. All good. HOWEVER, we were NOT checked in at Warsaw, and we were NOT checked in to the flight to Zagreb. In other words, to the airline, it looked as if we did not complete our initial "to Europe" flights. If you know anything about airlines today, this is a red flag - if you do not complete your flight at any point, the entire trip is cancelled. On our return trip, we had a huge problem getting our flight set up. It took 2 hours to find our itinerary, and find out that we had been cancelled. Fortunately, they believed us, and re-established our trip back to the US. So, while the flight to Europe was fine, and I enjoyed LOT, they are disorganized and still not a fully 1st world airline organization.

They left Chicago a full 1.5 hours late.

Good luck finding any airline that does not leave ORD late a times. It's a fact of life that ORD has lots of delays...lots of flights and sometimes uncooperative weather. It's the second largest airport in the US (69.9 million passengers annually compared to 63.8 million at Charles De Gaulle, but much less than Atlanta Hartsfield's 96.1 million).