LOT Polish Airlines: An Object Lesson in Efficiency and Customer Service

On June 5, 2010 LOT flight 007 from New York's JFK airport to Warsaw was scheduled to begin boarding at 5:30 pm. Around the scheduled boarding time an announcement was made that the flight would be delayed. At 6:00 pm the status was updated – passengers were to expect additional information on the flight status in another 30 minutes. There was no announcement at 6:30 pm, but around 7:00 pm we were told that there was a technical difficulty with the airplane, and that we would be updated in an additional hour. These once-hourly delays continued for about 3 more hours during which time we were not offered any water, food, telephone calls, e-mails, or reliable information. Finally, at about 10 pm, a new and more concrete announcement was made letting us know that the flight would leave at 11:55 pm.

As my wife and I now had about two hours before departure and had not had anything to eat or drink since lunch, we decided we would go buy something for dinner after the 10 pm status update. We weren't away from the gate for more than 40 minutes. However, upon returning to the gate we found it empty. There had been no announcements! Furthermore, there was no information about our flight at either the gate or at the common departures board. Fortunately, while attempting to find out what happened to our flight we passed by a group of familiar faces (from the previous 4 and a half hours of shared waiting). The other passengers for our Warsaw flight were waiting at a new gate (Gate 23). Again, if we had not happened to recognize some of the other passengers by chance, we would have never found this out since no announcements were ever made!

Things only got worse. As it turned out, Gate 23 had no loud speakers (or so we were told at least – a flight to Spain at the gate right next to ours was making announcements in the usual manner). Thus, the LOT staff proceeded to make additional announcements by having what appeared to be their youngest and most inexperienced staff member stand in the middle of the roughly 200 flight 007 passengers and attempt to talk over the crowd. The young staffer didn't speak nearly loudly enough, nor did she or any of her coworkers make any attempt to stand on a chair, find a megaphone, or do anything else to establish any aspect of authority and visibility. Worst of all, some of the announcements were only made in Polish! Friendly passengers had to translate for everyone else. Understandably, some passengers -- many of whom were traveling with babies and small children -- began to get frustrated. The entire LOT staff, except for one young gentleman, seemed like they had no experience whatsoever in handling a situation like this. They were incapable of restoring order within the increasingly irritable passengers and generally appeared both flustered and confused about how to handle the situation.

During this entire period of time (from 5:30 pm until almost midnight) nothing was offered to the passengers, not even water. There was a 16 year old girl traveling by herself who had diabetes and was on an insulin pump. Her cell phone had run out of batteries and she could not make a call to her parents to let them know her situation. I lent her my cell phone, but what if she had not asked me? The very least the LOT staff could have done would be to give people a way to call loved ones, friends, coworkers, etc.

Due to the staff's mismanagement of the crowd and the inability of most travelers to hear what small amounts of information the staff did attempt to give out, a few passengers became restless and began to yell at the employees. Instead of taking charge of the situation and giving clear and concrete details about the flight status, anticipated delay times, etc., around midnight the LOT staff instead began to take passengers' boarding passes and then send them down an escalator into another group of (the previously mentioned) passengers boarding a flight to Spain. It was very crowded and somewhat difficult to exit the escalator without being dumped on top of other passengers already waiting below. This all seemed extremely unsafe – thankfully no accidents occurred.

After getting downstairs we noticed that there was not only still no water, but also no restrooms there. The LOT 007 passengers were held in this condition for an additional hour. Eventually it became clear that we had been sent down to this pre-boarding area more as a means to keep the increasingly angry passengers out of the main terminal than to actually get them onto the airplane. Again, no announcements were given until a single employee told us we should come back up to the main terminal again (now without valid boarding passes). The next day we learned that some of the passengers were even boarded on a bus to the plane only to be turned back after having to wait in the bus for about an hour.

Upon returning to Gate 23 in the terminal once again, we were told we would be given hotel rooms because the flight was officially canceled and rescheduled for the next day at 2 pm (the time was now after midnight). No alternative flights or refunds were offered! No phone calls, e-mail access, or other communication methods were offered either. I had no way of informing my coworkers in Europe that I was now surly going to miss the first day of the conference I was traveling to attend.

The passengers wanting a hotel were asked to let the staff know. The hotel request process was done by a single staff member who answered the phone and checked peoples' names from a printed out list while four of her LOT coworkers stood behind the counter and looked confused. Of course, no order was maintained and people crowded in front the counter to try to hear and register. This terribly organized process went on for about half an hour. At approximately 12:30 AM, June 6, we were told to go back out through security to catch a bus to a hotel. Upstairs, however we had to go through an almost identical hotel request process over again with one of five employees distributing people to hotel rooms (while the other four employed talked, joked, and played with their cell phones nearby).

Upon arriving at the designated bus pickup sight, we waited an additional 2 hours for a bus. Finally, at approximately 2:30 am, two buses arrived to take us to a Holiday Inn. The buses did not have enough room for all the passengers, so many of us had to stand in the isles between the seats (these were not city buses – there was nothing to hang onto). At approximately 3 am, after one of the buses attempted to leave passengers at the wrong hotel, everyone had finally arrived at the designated Holiday Inn somewhere in Brooklyn. It took an additional hour for us to actually get into our room.

My wife and I were placed in a room with the previously mentioned 16 year old girl who was traveling alone – quite scared and extremely exhausted, and another man who was also traveling alone. We decided to split the beds up by gender, so I slept with the solo male traveler while my wife slept next to the 16 year old girl (after calling her father – with our own phone – to explain the situation). Needless to say, this situation was highly uncomfortable, and both my wife and I slept in our clothing. The legal ramifications of leaving a minor alone in a room with several strange adults aside, I would like to emphasize the general point that leaving minors in hotel rooms with total strangers is unacceptable.

The next morning we awoke from our highly uncomfortable slumber to learn that buses had been scheduled to pick us up at the hotel and take us back to the airport at 11:00 am. At 11:15 am two buses arrived at the hotel. Unfortunately, as the night before, the two buses were too small to hold all the passengers. However, this time the bus drivers refused to break the law by letting us pack an extra 30 people into the isles. Instead, these 30 individuals – including my wife and myself – were left behind after extracting a promise from one of the bus drivers that he would come back for us. He never came back. More than an hour and a half later we were still waiting at the hotel. It took a polish speaking passenger repeatedly calling LOT to have anther bus scheduled to come pick us up. In the mean time, scared of missing the 2 pm flight, about 10 passengers used their own money to take cabs to the airport. Around 2 pm the last 'bus' finally arrived to take the remaining 17 passengers to the airport. Unfortunately, it was not a bus at all, but a large van which could seat 10. Thankfully, however, the driver allowed all 17 of us to squeeze in. My wife and I shared the front passenger seat. At one point my wife had to bend down and hide herself as we drove past a police officer on the freeway. However, we were simply thankful to have a chance to possibly catch the flight.

When we arrived at the airport about 2:30 pm we were chastised by a LOT employee for holding up the flight! Rushed through security, we finally arrived at our plane nearly a day after the originally scheduled boarding time. Of course, in true LOT style, we did not leave immediately thereafter. Instead we spent another nearly 3 hours on the runway waiting for the plane to be filled up with gas before taking off. Why the flight had not been filled up with gas before the new 2 pm departure time is beyond me. During this entire period of waiting for the bus, getting to the airport, and waiting for refueling we were offered no food, water, phone calls, or anything else. In fact, my wife had to argue with a LOT staff member to get the poor 16 year old girl with diabetes given some water and a snack!

I would like to conclude by telling you that this letter was written during a delay of our return flight to the US (LOT flight 003 from Warsaw to Chicago). The delay was ultimately 3.5 hours long, causing us to miss our connecting flight in Chicago. We had to stay over night again...