75 Years anniversary of Polish LOT’s Budapest-Warsaw Route

Budapest Airport remembered a historic moment today, as the first scheduled commercial flight between Warsaw and Budapest was launched exactly 75 years ago. Covering the distance of 541 kilometers between the two cities, it started a new chapter in the development of aviation in Central Europe. To commemorate this anniversary, passengers leaving for Warsaw and the crew of the LOT flight received a special cake from Budapest Airport. Aircraft of the 84-year-old Polish carrier so far carried 3.8 million passengers in total between Warsaw and Budapest.

The flight linking the Hungarian and Polish capitals was launched jointly by LOT and Malért with Junkers JU-52 aircraft. It soon became popular, and two months later the next route was launched by LOT in September 1938 connecting Warsaw, Cracow, and Budapest. A year later the Polish national carrier also started up the routes of Warsaw-Budapest-Belgrade and Budapest-Venice-Rome, but these flights were short-lived due to World War II. The Warsaw-Budapest route was reopened in October 1947 and it was jointly operated by LOT and Malév until the grounding of the Hungarian national carrier.

During the operation of this flight, a number of aircraft types operated by LOT came to Budapest including DC-2, Lockheed L14H Super Electra, and Lisunow Li-2 planes in the initial period, to be followed by Iljusin Il-14 and Il-18 as well as Tupoljev Tu-134 and Tu-134A jets. Later on, more economical types – ATR-72 and Boeing B-737 – and finally the currently used Embraer ERJ-170 and 175 aircraft were introduced. This year in January LOT came to Budapest on several occasions with its recently acquired Boeing 787 Dreamliner designed to serve long-haul routes.

Celebrating the route of 75 years, Budapest Airport aviation director Kam Jandu expressed appreciation for the role of the Polish carrier and the Warsaw flight: “We are happy to congratulate LOT Polish Airlines for their undiminished success reflecting the traditionally close Polish-Hungarian friendship in business and tourism alike. LOT is an important partner of Budapest Airport as it offers excellent connectivity for Hungarian passengers with 60 destinations in Europe, America, and Asia.”

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