Air Polonia hopes to fill the skies with tourists

Air Polonia is planning to fly to the UK from Monday 15 December, challenging budget airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet, who both were rumoured to be interested in flying to Poland.

Air Polonia intends to fly to London's Stansted airport six times a week.

The success of Ryanair and Easyjet's 'no frills' formula has spawned many imitators and the boom in budget travel shows no sign of slowing.

Shake-up for EU

Air Polonia is the first domestic rival to Poland's national carrier, Lot.

Its deputy chief executive, Jan Litwinski, is a former chief executive of Lot.

Air Polonia launched it services with a route from the Polish capital, Warsaw, to the Baltic port of Gdansk.

But from next week it will add flights to London. As well as Warsaw, its international routes will serve two other Polish cities, industrial Katowice and scenic Poznan, which was the country's capital in the early 14th century.

Poland is in the midst of reforming its air travel market as it prepares to join the European Union in 2004.

Competition

Lot was previously the only airline allowed to fly domestic routes. Air Polonia intends to fly two internal routes, to Wroclaw, one of Poland's oldest cities, and Gdansk.

Easyjet and Ryanair have yet to launch flights to Poland. Air Polonia's revamp - it used to be a cargo and charter carrier - means they will face competition if they do so.

Air Polonia is planning to expand its international routes to include Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels and Stockholm in 2004.

Lot has braced itself to face tougher competition on international routes by joining the Star Alliance, a global grouping of airlines which includes Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Air Canada.

Lot, which serves 48 European cities abroad and 12 Polish destinations, says its passenger numbers rose 5% in 2002 to 3.4 million.