LOT Polish Airlines
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Lot Of Troubles it is. Never again after using this airline since 1967.
We bought a business class flight from Gdansk via Warsaw to Sri Lanka - LOT offered good prices, if the ticket was bought well in advance, so we decided to experience a bit of luxury. The outbound flight on March 11 was very pleasant with full service and an almost empty cabin. Unfortunately, due to spread of coronavirus during our stay Polish government closed borders and LOT canceled our return flight. Of course, LOT did not care to inform us about anything, we learned about canceled flights from friends who called us from Poland. Then the first problem occurred - it was not possible to contact the airline. Answering machine stated that waiting time was less than a minute, then music for hours, and connection was lost. Friends from Poland called us about resumption of some flights to Poland. The price of the flight was not to exceed PLN 2,400 (the rest was to be paid by the government). But there were no flights from Colombo on LOT website. According to the site info, in the absence of a flight from a given country, application form had to be completed and LOT was to inform about flight home. LOT never contacted us. Our Polish friends phoned us that there was a flight from Colombo on March 17. The LOT website, offered tickets, but only on March 29 and at a price from PLN 2,350 for economy to almost 8,000 for business - one way and only to Warsaw!! For the record – RETURN economy flight from Gdansk to Colombo was around PLN 2,300 by the time we booked our tickets. Change of booking by Internet was impossible. Being extremely lucky I was able to call the hotline at 3am and change the reservation, just before deciding to pay again for an already paid flight - only at least twice the price. Then unpleasant surprise on board. Information that "due to circumstances the on-board service will be limited." We have pandemia but there were no disinfectant or sanitizing wipes on board. Only passengers' temperature was taken, a little bit of some gas was sprayed in the cabin before departure and a medical form filled. One of the toilets was reserved for use by the crew only. A service below the worst low-cost airline was offered for a 10-hour flight. No hot meal not even a cup of coffee or tea.Mineral water, two disgusting, inedible, cellophane wrapped sandwiches and juice or soda. AND THAT'S ALL!! in Business Class LOT probably "saved" some $250 on this flight in exchange of loosing their reputation and future passengers. Aircraft staff had hot meals, but only for themselves. It appears that LOT try to recover future loss of income by selling substandard service for full price. And LOT probably will also want to reach into the pocket of all Poles by extorting subsidies from the Polish government to tickets that either had already been paid for by passengers in advance, or by the ones now forced to buy one-way tickets for the price of a return one. I asked for a complaint form, but I received a reply that such did not exist and that they have forms "on normal flights", but for this flight "the forms were not delivered by Warsaw". A survey that can be completed using the onboard entertainment system is another sign of complacency and arrogance of the LOT management. There is practically no room for any critical comments about the service. There is a list of superlatives about LOT and their staff, and the only choice is to confirm at least one item per page. If none of the given "superlatives" is true and nothing is marked, then the survey cannot be continued. In this way, praise must be given to staff behavior that has not taken place. But LOT can boast about excellence of the services confirmed by satisfied passengers. Congratulations to LOT for complacency and Survey Analytics for the lack of professionalism in preparing the survey. As Pole I used to fly LOT even if it was more expensive - never again.