LOT Fly&Rail: an air-rail product that starts at the far end of the network

LOT Polish Airlines announced on 27 October 2026 the launch of LOT Fly&Rail, a product that lets passengers buy a flight and an onward train journey in a single booking, with one payment. At launch, it covers rail connections from Zurich, Geneva, and Stockholm to 33 stations: 18 in Switzerland (operated by SBB) and 15 in Sweden (operated by SJ). AccesRail, a technology provider that already connects rail operators to several airlines, integrates the rail legs into LOT’s reservation system.

For now, the service is attached to LOT’s short-haul flights. The airline says it will gradually extend it across the whole network.

The service starts at destination

Most European air-rail products begin in the carrier’s home market. The national railway feeds the hub, and trains replace or complement short domestic flights. LOT has done the opposite. Its first rail links sit at the far end of its routes from Warsaw, extending three outstations into a catchment of more than 30 towns and cities.

That is network reach without aircraft, slots or new routes. For a mid-sized carrier, it is an inexpensive way to sell destinations it will never fly to.

The marketing angle: selling a destination

On lot.com, customers can now enter a Swiss or Swedish railway station as their final destination, and the booking engine returns combined flight-and-train options. The product is also available through all of LOT’s distribution channels, which matters for travel agents and corporate buyers.

This is a small interface change but a real shift in what is being sold. Airlines traditionally market airport pairs. Intermodality lets them market the place the customer actually wants to reach. Against low-cost competitors selling a seat to Zurich or Stockholm, a network carrier offering the whole journey to the final town has a clearer argument than price alone.

The only catch is check-in, handled separately for each leg: the flight through LOT’s usual channels, and the train through the AccesRail Check-In platform, which opens 24 hours before departure for SBB services and 36 hours before for SJ. The release does not explain what happens to the rail leg if the flight arrives late.

These details will decide whether customers experience LOT Fly&Rail as a single trip or as two tickets bought at the same time. The marketing message is simplicity; the operational reality still has two steps.

The real target is Port Polska

Robert Ludera, LOT’s Chief Commercial Officer, describes Fly&Rail as the first step in expanding the airline’s intermodal offering and links it directly to Port Polska, the planned new central hub, where air-rail integration is expected to play a strategic role.

Read this way, Sweden and Switzerland are a low-risk test bed. LOT can test the booking flow, distribution, and customer communication on a small scale, with experienced rail partners, before the version that matters for its business case: rail feeding passengers from across Poland into a new hub.

What to watch

It will be important to monitor which markets come next and whether a Polish rail operator joins the scheme. This last event would also be instrumental in enabling easier connection guarantees covering missed trains after flight delays.
Finally, to complete the customer experience, it will be interesting to see if rail check-in moves into the LOT app rather than a separate platform.