My trip back: ORD-WAW

This is official: LO joined SK in the ‘airline without a lounge on TATL fights’ category. Before the ORD T5 mess (i.e. enlarging) started LO used the AF lounge, which is now gone. Other airlines previously using the AF lounge (AF, KL, EY, also LX that previously had its own lounge) contracted the Swissport lounge – but not LO. As the flight was 1 hours late (if you check the Flightradar24 statistics LO4 is quite frequently late) and to be a good Flyertalker, I went to T1 to use UAL Polaris lounge.

T5 to T1

The whole thing took 25 minutes max: train to T1, TSA (a nice guy was a bit confused but scanned my LO B/P and ‘computer said yes’), the underground connector, Polaris lounge (agent was equally confused but the Airline IT God was nice to me and ‘computer said yes’ again when she scanned the B/P).

UAL Polaris Lounge

What an amazing lounge. Great design, great use of space (not too many fancy furniture than at e.g. IAH Polaris lounge, what makes the whole thing more classy). Amazing food at the in-lounge restaurant, great service from young servers, nice bar attendants, great food at the self-service buffet (if you are still hungry after eating at the restaurant). I could not think of a single thing I didn’t like in this lounge. I cannot even imagine how much UAL spent on these Polaris lounges – they used quality material and had to have zero budget limitations. If you are flying from T5 and even if your airline is paying for the lounge, it is worth to make a detour.

T1 to T5 ‘drama’

It took CHI Airport Authorities like 2 years to improve/refresh/rebuild ORD train connector (to be honest I do not see any changes/improvements). They re-inaugurated the service only a few weeks back and guess what – the system went technical. So, they sent us to the shuttle bus stop. A nice shuttle bus driver was supposed to go to the parking lot, but when realized the crowd wants to go to T5 he decided to change the route and take us there. Big, big kudos!

LO Theoretical Seating

I have sort-of-official confirmation LO has Theoretical Seating. In the morning I checked the GDS and the flight showed C6 availability (it was B787-8 with 18 seats in C). I had 2A and 2B was also occupied. But I saw 1A/B open - so during the online check-in - I changed the seat to 1A. I looked at the GDS map again and 1B became blocked. 2A - my previous seat - also became blocked. To my surprise - when the doors closed - both 1B and 2A were still unoccupied. Overall, a big win - seats next to me were unoccupied on both outbound and inbound (I know, I know - First World problem). I am still not sure if they purchased any Altea seat blocker package or wrote the code themselves (it should not be too complicated) - but he results are great.

ORD-WAW

C left with 5 seats unoccupied (so I guess someone purchased an upgrade) and - based on the discussion between dispatcher and purser - the final load was 102.

We had yet another ‘IL-62 purser’ and service was amazing. This yet again reconfirms my theory – these ‘vintage’ pursers always deliver great service and are LOT’s biggest asset. To expedite service she even helped other F/A’s what is really rare among pursers. Other F/A’s were also proving great service. You could clearly see they like the job and want to be there. I think service-wise this could have been one of the best TATL flights I have ever had.

Food was not as good as from WAW but still of very high quality. Bread was still cold and packed in plastic covers. The dessert trolley was the best I have ever seen on any airline (including TK) – they had 6 (yep – six) options to choose from (I had cheesecake).

The amenity kit was still the same ECO-nomy class type we received on the outbound. I know I am spoiled by TK that gives out high quality Versace kits, but PL is not particularly known for being pro-Eco. So, ECO kit looks more like ‘let’s pretend we are environmentally-conscious, but in fact let’s save some money on amenity kits’ sort-of-thing. Of course, it is still more like the First World problem, and I report it more for the fact checking purposes.

Overall, a very solid experience.

Small recap

Stuff to improve (should not cost too much):

- Get rid of these stupid bed sheets and invest in proper mattresses/pads that e.g. TK or AC have

- Change pillows to bigger ones

- Improve IFE a bit by adding a few more movies – choice is limited now

- I understand current ORD T5 infrastructure limitations, but not paying for the lounge is really not a right thing to do

- If LOT is able to find sponsors for their amenity kits – improve them. I am sure TK does not pay full price for their Versace (previously Jaguar, Porsche Design, Bulgari etc.) kits

Stuff to keep:

- ‘The IL-62 pursers’ – they seem to be Company’s biggest asset, do not let them retire

- Inflight food quality – no ‘enhancements’ please

- Overall lounge quality in WAW – no ‘enhancements’ please. Let me, however, moan a bit: I know we are still ‘fighting against COVID’ but maybe it is time to go back to the buffet concept? Is there a reason why KRK or KTW lounges are back to buffets and in WAW hot food still needs to be ordered and is delivered in these stupid plastic (and definitely not ECO) boxes?

- Very efficient fast track in WAW – conveniently located next to LO Premium check-in area – keep it hidden!