EuroLOT

If you stood at the fence in Warsaw, Krakow or Gdansk between 1997 and 2015, you most likely saw them: turboprops with Polish registrations shuttling across the country on short routes. EuroLOT was the regional airline from the LOT orbit – at first almost invisible as a feeder, later with its own brand and modern Dash 8 Q400s. This page shows you how the airline came about, which aircraft it flew, why it gave up in 2015 and how to recognize it in old photos.

EuroLOT at a glance

EuroLOT was a Polish regional airline based in Warsaw – quite literally in its parent’s house: the administration sat in the headquarters of LOT Polish Airlines. The company was founded on December 19, 1996, and flight operations started on July 1, 1997. The assignment was clearly defined: to rebuild the network of domestic and regional connections in Poland, using aircraft that suit thin routes.

The history of EuroLOT can be divided roughly into three stages. In the first years it was a small turboprop airline with a network of its own. From 2000 it became a pure flight operation for LOT and took over its ATR fleet. From summer 2011 it appeared again as an independent airline under the brand eurolot.com – an attempt that lasted barely four years. The last flight landed on March 31, 2015.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code K2: appeared in the flight number of EuroLOT’s own flights, above all in the eurolot.com phase from 2011.
• ICAO code ELO: appeared in the air traffic control flight plan and in old ADS-B recordings.
• Callsign EUROLOT: how the crew identified itself on the radio.

Important for archive work: many EuroLOT flights did not run under K2 at all. As long as EuroLOT flew on behalf of LOT, departure boards and tickets mostly showed LOT flight numbers with LO. If you match old sightings against schedules, an LO flight may well have been operated by a EuroLOT aircraft. How flight number, ICAO code and callsign relate is explained in the article IATA and ICAO codes explained. And why one airline operates flights for another is covered in Codeshare flights explained.

The history of EuroLOT

Period	Event	Fleet in this phase
December 1996	Founded as a regional airline in the LOT orbit	–
July 1997	Flight operations begin	ATR 42-300, plus ATR 72-200 from LOT
1998	Joins the European Regions Airline Association (ERA)	ATR 42, ATR 72
from 2000	Conversion into a flight operation for LOT, takeover of all LOT ATRs	ATR 42-300, ATR 72-200
from 2002	Renewal of the small turboprops	ATR 42-500s replace ATR 42-300s
July 2011	Own brand eurolot.com, first routes Gdansk–Wroclaw and Gdansk–Krakow	ATR 42-500, ATR 72-200
February 2012	Order for eight Dash 8 Q400 NextGens	–
May 2012	First Q400 (SP-EQA) lands in Warsaw	Mixed ATR and Q400 fleet
August 2012	LOT flies domestic routes itself again	EuroLOT expands its own European network
2014	Sale of two aircraft to pay off debts, by the end of 2014 only Q400s in service	Q400
February/March 2015	Closure announced, last flight Zurich–Krakow	eleven Q400s

The beginnings: turboprops for Poland’s regions

In the 1990s LOT was looking for a way to serve domestic and regional routes economically. Large jets did not pay off there, so the new subsidiary got turboprops. EuroLOT started in July 1997 with ATR 42-300s, joined by ATR 72-200s, which were initially leased from LOT. In 1998 EuroLOT joined the association of European regional airlines.

Flight operations for LOT

Around the turn of the millennium the role changed. EuroLOT went from an independent provider to a flight operation on behalf of LOT and took over all of its parent’s ATRs from 2000. For passengers EuroLOT was thus often invisible: they booked LOT but sat in an ATR with a EuroLOT crew. From 2002 ATR 42-500s gradually replaced the older ATR 42-300s. In 2003 EuroLOT also opened its own pilot training center. That LOT joined Star Alliance in the same year affected EuroLOT only indirectly – as a feeder in the LOT network, not as a member in its own right.

A side note from this time: according to German-language accounts, after the Smolensk plane crash in 2010 EuroLOT provided two Embraer 175s for government flights for a few weeks. The information on these jets is sparse in the sources, though – they played no major role in the actual EuroLOT story.

The eurolot.com phase

In summer 2011 the Polish state took over the majority of EuroLOT, and the airline reinvented itself. From July 1, 2011, it flew under the brand eurolot.com on its own account – first from Gdansk to Wroclaw and to Krakow. At the end of 2011 connections from Gdansk and Warsaw to Poprad in Slovakia were added. In August 2012 LOT decided to fly its domestic routes with its own fleet again. EuroLOT then focused more on European routes and continued to fly feeder service on some of LOT’s international routes.

The network grew quickly. Under its own brand EuroLOT served almost 40 airports, mainly in Poland, Germany, Croatia and Italy, plus destinations in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Moldova, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine. The most important Polish pillars were Gdansk, Krakow, Warsaw Chopin and Wroclaw.

The end in 2015

Economically the numbers did not add up. Polish sources describe financial problems from around 2012. The reasons given are the risk of its own network, a failed collaboration with the provider 4You Airlines and a strategy that did not fit the market situation. In early 2014 EuroLOT sold two aircraft to settle debts with state bodies.

On February 6, 2015, the announcement followed: flight operations would end on March 31, 2015. The owner saw no viable future for the company. The last flight went from Zurich to Krakow, after which EuroLOT was wound up. LOT took over some of the routes and most of the Q400s. How EuroLOT fits into the series of European airline collapses is shown in the overview Major airline bankruptcies in Europe.

The fleet: from ATR to Q400

Throughout its history EuroLOT was a turboprop airline. That is handy for spotters: the type tells you fairly reliably which phase a photo comes from.

Type	Period (approx.)	Role at EuroLOT	Spotter note
ATR 42-300	1997–2002/2003	Initial equipment	Short fuselage, older four-blade propellers
ATR 72-200	1997–before 2015	Largest ATR in the fleet, taken over from LOT	Long fuselage, high wing, registrations including SP-LF…
ATR 42-500	from 2002	Replacement for the ATR 42-300	Short fuselage, six-blade propellers
BAe Jetstream 31/32	at times	Small turboprop, leased	Very small, low wing – rarely photographed
Dash 8 Q400 NextGen	2012–2015	Last single-type fleet, finally eleven aircraft	Long, slender, T-tail, 78 seats, SP-EQ…

The periods are approximate values because additions and departures ran over longer spans. According to Polish-language fleet lists, the ATR 72 fleet consisted of ten aircraft and the ATR 42-500 fleet of eight.

ATR 42 and ATR 72: the workhorse of the first 15 years

The turboprops from ATR shaped EuroLOT into the 2010s. The ATR 42 with about 50 seats suited thin domestic routes, the longer ATR 72 busier connections. Both are high-wing aircraft with two propellers and a T-shaped tail with the horizontal stabilizer set high up. For you as a spotter, the difference between the ATR 42-300 and ATR 42-500 is the most interesting subtlety: the -500 has propellers with six blades, the -300 still with four. You find more tips in the guide Telling ATR 42/72 and Dash 8 apart.

Dash 8 Q400: the quick farewell to the ATR

On February 29, 2012, EuroLOT ordered eight Dash 8 Q400 NextGens from Bombardier to replace the ATR fleet. The first aircraft, SP-EQA, landed in Warsaw on May 17, 2012. The order later grew; at the end of 2014 eleven Q400s with 78 seats each were flying, and the ATRs had already been phased out by then.

The Q400 is considerably faster than the ATR and was thus better suited to the longer European routes of the eurolot.com phase. Today the program belongs to De Havilland Canada, which took over the Dash 8 family from Bombardier in 2019.

After the end of EuroLOT, LOT took over most of the Q400s and used the type for a few more years. If you photographed a LOT Q400 with an SP-EQ registration after April 2015, you have a former EuroLOT aircraft in the can. Such changes can often be recognized by transitional paint schemes – more on this in the article Recognizing hybrid liveries.

How to recognize EuroLOT

The most important feature is the SP registration: all EuroLOT aircraft were registered in Poland. Within the fleet the registration series help – the Q400s wore registrations from SP-EQA upward, many ATR 72s registrations from the SP-LF series. Because EuroLOT flew on LOT assignments for a long time and the Q400s later moved to LOT, the registration alone is not enough, though: you have to read registration, livery and date together.

EuroLOT at German airports

In the eurolot.com phase EuroLOT was also a topic for spotters in Germany. Destinations included Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg and Stuttgart. One special case was Heringsdorf on Usedom: the small Baltic Sea airport got connections from Poland and was thus one of the places where you could photograph a EuroLOT Q400 against a holiday backdrop. Which spots work at German airports today is shown in the guides to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart.

EuroLOT was also active in neighboring countries, such as to Vienna, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Zurich, Vilnius, Lviv and Helsinki, and in summer to Croatian destinations like Split, Dubrovnik and Zadar. The airline’s last flight departed from Zurich – one reason why photos from March 2015 there have a certain archive value today. You find more on the airport in the plane spotting guide for Zurich.

If you want to trace Polish aviation history on the ground, a detour to the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow (Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego) is worthwhile. And at the former EuroLOT bases like Krakow or Gdansk you now see the turboprops and regional jets of other airlines.

EuroLOT compared

In Central and Eastern Europe there were several airlines with a similar pattern: closely tied to a national airline, regionally oriented, and many of them are history today.

Airline	Country	Role	Connection to EuroLOT
LOT	Poland	National network airline, Star Alliance	Founding parent, customer, took over the Q400s
Centralwings	Poland	Low-cost subsidiary of LOT (historic)	Second LOT subsidiary of the same era
Estonian Air	Estonia	National airline (historic)	Also shut down in 2015
Adria Airways	Slovenia	National airline (historic)	Star Alliance orbit, shut down in 2019
Czech Airlines	Czechia	National airline (historic)	With ATRs in regional service
airBaltic	Latvia	Network airline	Also flew Dash 8 Q400s for a long time

The big picture of the industry is shown in the overview Regional airlines in Europe. How the “airline flies for airline” model works is explained in Wet lease explained.

Common mix-ups

• Taking EuroLOT for a low-cost airline – that was Centralwings. EuroLOT was a regional and feeder airline.
• Logging every ATR in the LOT orbit as LOT – from 2000 the ATRs flew for LOT but belonged to EuroLOT.
• Logging an SP-EQ Q400 after April 2015 as EuroLOT – from then on they flew for LOT.
• Confusing the ATR 72 with the Dash 8 Q400 – landing gear and fuselage length decide.
• Equating the ATR 42-300 and ATR 42-500 – the number of propeller blades gives away the version.
• Listing EuroLOT as a Star Alliance member – the member was LOT, not EuroLOT.

Conclusion

For almost two decades EuroLOT was the quiet backbone of Polish regional traffic. First as a small turboprop airline, then as an ATR operation for LOT, finally as its own brand with modern Dash 8 Q400s – and it was precisely this last step into independence that led to its end. For spotters what remains is a manageable, easy-to-sort story: type, SP registration and the date of the shot tell you in every photo which phase it comes from. How to record such archive finds properly is shown in the article Documenting sightings in your logbook.