On May 6, LOT Polish Airlines will take off from its Warsaw hub to San Francisco. A Star Alliance route, the carrier will now fly to six US airports. It rises to seven when Canada is included. The launch is bound to make the next celebratory weekly routes article (see last week’s jam-packed edition).

The brand-new link contributes to the airline having a record number of departures to North America. In the peak summer month of August, with the highest demand and fares, Cirium Diio data shows that LOT Polish plans 69 weekly flights to the US/Canada. Daily departures vary from nine to 11 services. This has increased by nearly a tenth compared to the prior record.

LOT Polish To San Francisco

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While all route launches are noteworthy, those that involve brand-new airport pairs (which have never been served before) are particularly significant. This is the case with LOT Polish to San Francisco. Booking data for all airlines, cabins, and passengers shows that the local Warsaw-San Francisco market had 26,000 round-trip passengers last year. This was partly driven by the ~15,000 people of Polish ancestry who live in the Northern California city.

It was Warsaw’s largest unserved city in North America. Critically, when all markets with 20,000+ local passengers are considered, both served and unserved, it had the highest fare, too. The average fare was $1,173 each way, marginally more than for Los Angeles ($1,146). Due to San Francisco’s shorter distance, it is a slightly higher-yielding market. Covering less distance also reduces operating expenses. Its selection was not surprising, although its codeshare agreement with fellow Star member United ended three years ago.

Four Weekly Flights Are Available

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LOT Polish will serve San Francisco four times weekly during the summer. Both the 254-seat 787-8 and 294-seat 787-9 will be deployed. The final departure of the season will be on October 22. The airline will be betting on capturing a good amount of connecting traffic via its Warsaw hub, which is becoming increasingly important.

Connectivity analysis for August shows that passengers may connect in Warsaw to reach 46 destinations from San Francisco, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East. This is based on waiting no more than four hours and flying no more than 50% longer than what a nonstop flight would be. They collectively had over 1.7 million passengers last year, of which LOT Polish only has to get a tiny proportion.

If the waiting time is extended to five hours, passengers may connect to/from Delhi in both directions. This is, of course, a large market from San Francisco (280,000 passengers). Delhi is likely to be an important market for LOT Polish on this route. The carrier’s split schedule, shown below, helps increase two-way connectivity.

That Makes A Record 69 Weekly Departures To North America

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In August, LOT Polish plans ten routes to the US and Canada. Seven are from its Warsaw hub, while the remaining three focus on point-to-point traffic from Kraków and Rzeszów. Kraków is a large city and a major inbound tourist destination, while Rzeszów is also close to the Ukraine border.

In descending frequency order, the routes are Warsaw to Toronto (17 weekly), Warsaw to New York JFK (14 weekly), Warsaw to Chicago O’Hare (11 weekly), Warsaw to Los Angeles (daily), Kraków to Chicago O’Hare (five weekly), Warsaw to Newark (five weekly), Warsaw to Miami (four weekly), Warsaw to San Francisco (four weekly), Kraków to Newark (weekly), and Rzeszów to Newark (weekly). LOT Polish will lease Privilege Style and EuroAtlantic 777-200ERs to operate some flights from Warsaw to Toronto and New York JFK.

With 69 weekly departures, LOT Polish is very comfortably the leading operator from Central and Eastern Europe to North America. Given it is the only one with a sizable network, that is not surprising. It provides 52% of the services, surpassing American (14 weekly; returning to Budapest and Prague), Air Serbia (12), United (ten; just started flying to Split), Air Canada (nine; returning to Budapest), Delta (seven), HiSky (six; Chicago flights launch soon), and Air Transat (four; Tirana service begins soon).