After a long delay, the much-awaited public offering of Poland's public carrier will take place in late 2009, with the airline restructuring itself to return to profitability. The chief executive confirmed this on Wednesday. Earlier during this month, LOT warned that the state-controlled airline was in dire need of restructuring in order to avoid an impending cash crunch amidst the soaring prices of fuel and mounting competition from no frills carriers, Ryanair for instance.

Commenting in this regard, the recently appointed CEO of LOT, Dariusz Nowak noted, "After the third quarter of 2009, if we find the level of restructuring as satisfactory, it will allow us to move to other strategic targets, including an IPO (initial public offering). I wouldn't see it before the end of the second quarter of 2009.”

He too noted that the new management would decide on this matter within a year to affirm if LOT is "floatable".

LOT, the national carrier of Poland warned on Tuesday that it will have to undergo a restructure to avoid a possible cash crunch, at a time when a USD$133 million operating loss has been forecasted. This situation has significantly clouded the path of the airline towards privatization. In addition to the soaring oil prices, the additional factors that challenged the airline were the wage increases and the headwinds suffered by the airline from its highly struggling no-frills arm.

Most notably, LOT has seen about five chief executives during the last five years under changing governments, which had clearly come as a hurdle in taking tough decisions that was absolutely necessary to shed its legacy of a state-owned carrier while dexterous rivals such as Ryanair moved in.

Konrad Tyrajski, the Chief Financial Officer observed during a news conference, "A significant rise in fixed and fuel costs are forcing us to revise our forecasts. Everything indicates that the coming months will be no better. We don't have the time to wait for restructuring because otherwise in the near future our company may have troubles maintaining liquidity."

In a very recent move, LOT has resumed its services operated between Manchester Airport and the Polish cities of Warsaw and Cracow. Notably, LOT has entered into a code-sharing agreement with Centralwings and Centralwings has been entrusted with the operations of the Polish airline's flights.

The schedule for these new operations will be as follows. Between Manchester and Warsaw, the new service will offer four services a week with flights available on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Between Manchester and Cracow, the airline will provide three services a week with flights available on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Commenting on the advantages of the code-sharing agreement, the commercial director of LOT Karolina Stanislawska remarked, "Thanks to our close co-operation within the LOT group, our passengers will be able to travel on the routes operated recently by Centralwings without having to change planes."