LOT Polish Airlines Adds a Fifth Nonstop Route to NY Metro Area

LOT Polish Airlines will be adding a fifth nonstop route from the New York area to Europe, just in time for the summer travel season.

As of March 28, 2022, the Polish flag carrier and Star Alliance member will launch a new connection from the city of Rzeszów (RZE) to Newark (EWR).

Let’s find out more.

Nonstop to Rzeszów With LOT

When the route launches in March, it will operate once per week on Mondays, according to the following schedule:

• Depart Newark (EWR) 7:45 p.m. — Arrive Rzeszów (RZE) 10:20 a.m. (+1)
• Depart Rzeszów (RZE) 2:10 p.m. — Arrive Newark (EWR) 5:50 p.m.

LOT’s long-haul fleet has a total of 15 aircraft and involves a mixture of Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliners with an average age of just 5.6 years.

The modern jets have 3 cabins onboard: economy, premium economy, and business class. While its business class seats are indeed lie-flat, they’re configured in a 2-2-2 arrangement, which means that not every passenger has direct access to the aisle.

It’s a shame that these young, state-of-the-art aircraft weren’t fitted with a more up-to-date business class product.

Hot Tip: When considering flying business class, it’s important to research the cabin layout as well as the aircraft you’d be flying you don’t “waste” your points on a subpar product. Check out our guide to SeatGuru for help finding the best seat on any plane!

LOT’s Presence in North America

The city of Rzeszów will be the third Polish city to have a nonstop connection to a New York-area airport, joining Warsaw (WAW) and Krakow (KRK) that connect to both Newark (EWR) and New York (JFK).

Rzeszów has a population of fewer than 200,000 people, so this is a bold new route for LOT, especially at a time when the demand for travel has yet to return to the levels we saw before the pandemic.

The other 2 cities — Warsaw and Krakow — are much more populous and less than 4 hours and 2 hours away from Rzeszów, respectively.

LOT also operates nonstop flights between Warsaw — the nation’s capital — and Chicago (ORD), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), and Toronto (YYZ). Chicago also welcomes nonstop service from Krakow.

As of June 2, 2022, LOT will also resume its seventh-freedom route between the Hungarian capital of Budapest (BUD) and New York (JFK).

These types of flights are rare in that airlines have the right to operate a flight between 2 countries of which neither are the airline’s home countries.

More common are fifth-freedom flights like the popular route that Emirates flies between Milan (MXP) and New York (JFK). The fifth-freedom flight allows an airline to fly passengers from its own country, via a second country, onwards to a final destination in a third country. The same is allowed in the reverse direction.

Final Thoughts

Rzeszów — the Polish city many of you didn’t even know existed — will soon be connected with North America with a nonstop flight to Newark (EWR) operated by LOT Polish Airlines.

If Rzeszów isn’t on the top of your list, remember that LOT can also take you to several more popular cities like Budapest, Krakow, and Warsaw.