Warsaw, 3 September 2010 - According to the latest data, published yesterday by the Civil Aviation Office, LOT Polish Airlines has become the largest carrier on the Polish market. LOT passengers represent almost 29% of the total number of air travellers in Poland.

As the Civil Aviation Office notes, this result marks a substantial 0.6% improvement on the analogical period for 2009. By the same token, LOT continues to take the lead over the largest low-cost carriers operating in Poland, namely Wizzair and Ryanair. Both these airlines carried several hundred thousand fewer passengers than LOT in the second quarter of this year.

Yesterday’s Civil Aviation Office report is very good news for us. It confirms the legitimacy of our sales policy and our approach to building our network of connections. On the one hand, we’re increasing the availability of tickets at a lower price, which means that more passengers are availing themselves of our services. And on the other hand, we’ve been taking some tough decisions as regards discontinuing the unprofitable connections that don’t give us full planes and opening up connections with one hundred percent ticket sales instead, says Sebastian Mikosz, the Chairman of the LOT Polish Airlines Management Board. Passengers are taking increasingly frequent note of the fact that when you fly, there’s no such thing as a ticket for a symbolic zloty. With LOT Polish Airlines, passengers pay one, all-inclusive price for their ticket and that means that more and more of the so-called ‘cheap’ airlines’ passengers are returning to us, he adds.

This year, LOT has already launched five new connections, flying to Tallinn, Bratislava, Beirut, Kalingrad and Yerevan. The opening of further direct connections is planned for the autumn, flying to Damascus, Cairo, Tbilisi and Hanoi. Tickets are already on sale for all LOT’s new routes.