LOT Polish Airlines

As with any other carrier, you’re entitled to compensation when a Polish airline disrupts your flight. LOT (Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT) runs flights to more than 80 cities. Its wide network reaches some of the most far-flung corners of the world, from the Old Continent to the Middle East, Asia, and North America.

What counts as a disrupted LOT flight?

The phrase “flight disruption” matters a lot here. It covers situations where the flight doesn’t go to plan and the passenger ends up inconvenienced. Disruption shows up as a cancelled flight, a delayed flight or denied boarding (overbooking).

Cancelled flight

A cancellation happens when the airline decides to call off a scheduled flight. The cause can be operational issues, extraordinary circumstances or low passenger numbers on a given route. To claim compensation from LOT, you have to have been told about the cancellation less than 14 days before departure.

Delayed flight

A delay can happen for all sorts of reasons — weather, technical issues, congested airspace. Sometimes the wait stretches into hours or even overnight. In that case you have a right to care from the airline: food and drink (mandatory after 2 hours), plus accommodation and transport. If your flight lands more than 3 hours late at your destination, you’re entitled to financial compensation. The delay has to be LOT’s fault, not so-called extraordinary circumstances.

Denied boarding (overbooking)

Overbooking happens when LOT sells more tickets than there are seats. The result: passengers get bumped to a later flight. Voluntarily giving up your seat doesn’t count, and neither does being denied boarding for misbehaving. In a genuine overbooking, you get the same compensation as for a delay or cancellation.

Missed connection

If a delay or cancellation caused you to miss a connecting flight to your final destination, the claim is judged the same way as a cancellation or delay.

When am I entitled to compensation under EU 261/2004, and when not?

If the disruption was caused by something LOT Polish Airlines could have prevented but didn’t, they owe you compensation. There are also situations they couldn’t have avoided — those are classed as extraordinary circumstances under EU rules. In those cases passengers are not entitled to compensation:

• Bad weather
• Political instability
• A technical fault the airline couldn’t have prevented
• Airport staff strike
• Security risks
• Terrorist attack, fire, bomb threat, and the like
• Other extraordinary or exceptional situations

How much do I get if I meet all the conditions?

The amount depends on your flight distance:

LOT may also halve the compensation under EU rules if a flight over 3,500 km was delayed by 3 to 4 hours — €300 instead of €600.

How do I claim compensation for a delayed or cancelled LOT flight?

In our experience, airlines either don’t say why the flight was disrupted at all, or feed passengers misleading information.

That’s why the best way to find out whether you’re really owed is to check your case for free. We verify the cause of the disruption and contact LOT. If they refuse to pay, we take them to court and get the compensation for you anyway.

You can also go to the airline directly through their website form. The catch: they may refuse to accept the claim, keep feeding you misleading replies, and the outcome stays uncertain.

What if LOT refuses to pay?

Don’t give up. If the airline has turned you down, we’ll still take a look. Our lawyers review the flight and the reasons for the refusal, free of charge. In most cases, we get our clients compensation even after the airline said no.