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".

Notably, Poland had decided to sell off the 68 percent stake owned by the firm in early 2009 in addition to a quarter of the airline in the hands of Swissair, the administrator. Notably, Swissair is a hangover from LOT's first efforts towards privatization that failed.

In fact, LOT saw not less than five chief executives during the course of the past five years. Following the loss of PLN275 million zlotys (USD$122.2 million) that is expected this year and PLN120 million that is expected in 2009, the airline is highly serious about returning to profit at least in the year 2010.