My daughter’s second long-haul trip had us flying on three LOT Polish Airlines flights including two long-hauls and a short-haul.
I wrote this guide since infant-related policies and service vary depending on the airline. Continue reading to learn all you need to know before booking a LOT ticket for your baby – and to see what your experience will likely be like.
2 Ways You Can Travel with a Baby on LOT and the Infant Fare
LOT Polish Airlines, like other airlines, considers babies under 2 years old to be infants. The airline only transports infants under 7 days old with special permission from a doctor. Children aged 2 to 12 need a child fare ticket. Children above 12 years old need a regular ticket.
With that, there are two ways you can travel with your (under 2 years old) baby on LOT:
- Infant on lap: In this case, your baby’s fare will be 10% of the adult fare plus any applicable taxes and fees on international flights. On domestic flights your baby will travel for free. Because infants are exempt from some paying some taxes and fees, the total cost of your baby’s international ticket will generally be less than 10% of your ticket’s total cost.
- Infant in seat: Because a seat will be reserved for your baby in this case, the ticket will be more expensive; 75% of the adult fare plus any applicable taxes and fees on international flights and 60% on domestic flights to be precise.
When traveling with an infant on lap, you will be able to book a bassinet for your baby on a first come, first served basis. Only one infant on lap per adult is permitted. Additional infants will need to have a seat booked and will need to be secured in a car seat or other such approved device.
Baby Bassinets on LOT
In case you are traveling with a lap infant on LOT, you will want to reserve a bassinet ahead of time if possible. Here’s all you need to know about doing so.
LOT Only Offers Bassinets on Its 787s
Like other airlines, LOT operates multiple different aircraft. However, it only offers baby bassinets on Boeing 787s (both 787-8 and 787-9), which it uses on long-haul flights. In other words, you will not be able to use a bassinet on LOT’s Embraer E-Jets (E170/E175/E190/E195) and Boeing 737s (737-800s and 737 MAX 8s).
Given that the E-Jets and 737s mostly operate short-haul flights around Europe, you will be just fine even without a bassinet most of the time (like we were on our flight from Warsaw to Vienna).
That said, the LOT 737s also fly from Warsaw to Cairo and Dubai. With these flights being about three and a half and five and a half hours long, you will want to have a bassinet if traveling on them with a lap infant. As such, if you are considering taking one of those routes, you might be better off looking at other options like, in the latter case, Emirates.
You should also keep in mind that the bassinet size – and thus the height and weight of the baby it can accommodate – varies between airlines and even aircraft types within a single airline’s fleet. In the case of LOT, the bassinet is 84 cm x 40 cm and can fit up to 12 kg babies that are at most 75 cm tall.
LOT Doesn’t Charge Fees for Reserving Bassinet-Compatible Seats
Nowadays, it is not unusual for airlines to charge fees for assigning bassinet seats. That’s because bassinet seats are in bulkhead rows that typically provide extra legroom and cost more to reserve due to that.
Fortunately, LOT allows passengers traveling with lap infants to book bassinet-compatible seats free of charge. Specifically, LOT will allow you and one other adult on the same reservation to choose these seats in advance. You can do so up to 24 hours before departure but if possible, do so at least a week before your flight.
For example, if you are traveling with your partner and a baby, you will be able to sit next to each other and have a bassinet, all free of charge. But if you are traveling with your partner, your older child, and a baby, you might have to pay extra seat selection fees if you all want to sit together.
For reference, when looking at Turkish Airlines as an option for the trip for which we eventually picked LOT, Turkish wanted over 500 dollars in seat selection fees if we wanted a bassinet and sit next to each other on two long-haul flights.
LOT Can Confirm Your Bassinet Reservation Before Payment
Before buying our flights, I called the LOT call center to ask if the bassinet seats were still available on the flights I was planning to take. The friendly agent asked me if I had a temporary booking code so that he could look into it.
While initially I wasn’t sure what he was asking for, it turned out that LOT provides a temporary booking code one step before you have to pay for your reservation. Once I found it (easy to do once you know it exists), I gave it to the agent who was immediately able to confirm that bassinet seats were still available on the two long-hauls we would be taking.
Not only that, but the agent was also able to assign the seats to us using the temporary booking code, eliminating the extremely small but non-zero chance that someone would snag the seats between me finishing the payment and calling the LOT call center again to reserve the seats.
All I had to do after hanging up was finalize the booking – i.e. pay – and we were good to go.
Infant Baggage Allowance and Stroller Usage on LOT
LOT offers a generous infant baggage allowance. Lap infant tickets booked in the Economy Saver fare come with a free carry-on baggage allowance including:
- Main carry-on bag (up to 8 kg and 55 cm x 40 cm x 23 cm)
- Personal item (up to 2 kg and 40 cm x 35 cm x 12 cm)
- Necessities bag with baby food, diapers, etc.
Other fare types also provide infants with a 23 kg checked baggage allowance.
For comparison, EVA Air does not give lap infants a full carry-on baggage allowance, instead only allowing a necessities bag on top of the adult’s carry-on allowance.
In addition to the baggage above, you will also be able to check in a foldable stroller or a car seat free of charge when traveling with LOT, regardless of your baby’s ticket’s fare type.
By default, your baby’s stroller will be tagged at check-in but you will be able to use it all the way to the departure gate where you will hand it to one of the ground staff members. Depending on the airport, you will have to do so either at the gate itself or at the aircraft door.
The same applies to pick-up – you will generally be able to get your stroller right after getting off the aircraft. That said, some airports (like Vienna) do not do that, instead only allowing you to pick up the stroller in the baggage claim area.
In case you, for some reason, prefer to just leave your stroller at the check-in counter, let the check-in staff know and they will arrange for that.
Baby Carrier Usage on LOT
When flying with a lap infant on LOT, you will be provided with a seatbelt extension that can be used to secure an infant to your seatbelt. On overwater flights, you will also be handed a baby life vest.
That said, like on EVA Air and unlike on Jetstar Japan, for example, you will most likely be able to use your baby carrier during take-off and landing (and in-flight) instead. I say “most likely” as we could do so on all three of our LOT flights but on the first flight we took, the flight attendant first had to confirm with the chief purser.
Because of this, I highly recommend taking a baby carrier with you onboard if you have one. Using it during take-off and landing can be much more comfortable than using the seatbelt extension, and it can also come in handy in flight.
Baby Meals on LOT
On flights that LOT serves full meal(s) to adults, it also offers the option of reserving a baby meal for your infant. If that’s something you are interested in, make sure to reserve the meal in advance (ideally when booking the bassinet), as otherwise your infant will not be provided anything to eat.
The baby meal will consist of jars of baby food and some juice.
Oh, and your baby will also receive a bib when traveling on a LOT flight with a meal service – how cool and cute is that?!
Just keep in mind that depending on your baby’s age, the provided food might not be solid enough, might be too sweet, and so on.
On both of the flights, like on our previous flights, we ended up feeding my daughter her usual travel meal sets we bought in Japan rather than the provided baby food. In case you are wondering, baby food, the water you will use to make your baby’s milk, and so on are not subject to the regular “100 ml or less” rule related to carrying on liquids.
Other Things to Know When Traveling on LOT with a Baby
Lastly, below are a couple of other things related to traveling with infants on LOT that didn’t fit into one of the sections above.
LOT Gives Children Gifts
Like many other airlines, children including lap infants get a variety of gifts when traveling on LOT Polish Airlines. What exactly your baby will get depends on when you take your flight, the flight’s duration, and so on.
My daughter got:
- A pair of socks and a bib on our flight from Tokyo to Warsaw
- A stuffed LOTEK (the airline’s mascot), a couple of booklets with activities, and a set of crayons on our flight from Warsaw to Vienna
- A stuffed LOTEK on our flight from Budapest to Seoul
I found it interesting that she got the most things on the shortest of the three flights.
Separately, LOT also has some downloadable content like coloring pages on its website. As an aviation enthusiast, I will definitely print the content out at a later point when my daughter grows up a bit, regardless of whether we will be flying on LOT or not.
LOT Lounges Don’t Have a Children’s Area But Warsaw Airport Does
Neither of the two LOT lounges at Warsaw Airport (Mazurek and Polonez) has a dedicated kids’ space. That said, you can, of course, still visit the lounge with your kids.
In case you have a longer transit, though, you might also want to spend some time at one of Warsaw Airport’s three playgrounds, which include:
- Monkey Grove: Near gates 36 and 39 in the Schengen departures area and gate 20 in the non-Schengen departures area
- Dreamliner Plane: Near gate 1 in the Schengen departures area
The latter is better if your baby is still relatively small.
LOT Has Diaper Changing Tables on All Aircraft
Regardless of what LOT aircraft you will be traveling on, its lavatories will be equipped with diaper-changing tables.
That said, because aircraft lavatories are small, the changing tables are small and difficult to use comfortably. As such, if you are traveling on a short one- or two-hour flight, I recommend changing your baby’s diaper just before boarding so that you will not have to do so onboard.
Summary
All in all, the basics of traveling on LOT with a baby are the same as they are on other airlines.
That said, some things positively distinguish LOT from some of its peers with the two most notable ones being:
- Free bassinet (and related adult seats) reservation even before completing a booking
- Free carry-on baggage allowance beyond just a necessities bag
