As more international airline carriers compete for air travel dollars spent by Polish-Americans, understanding spending habits necessitated by their ethnic background becomes more important for airlines to maintain an adequate market share in the trans-Atlantic air transit market. Cultural, economic and marketing differences of Polish-Americans shopping for airfares to Eastern and Central Europe are revealed in a new survey by Global Advertising Strategies, "Preferences of Polish-Americans in Choosing a Carrier for Flights to Eastern and Central Europe (ECE)"
All airlines being equal, namely offering direct flights to ECE destinations at the same price, 50 percent of Polish-Americans would still fly LOT, 14 percent - Lufthansa, and 10 percent - KLM, the survey found. Absent from this data are U.S. airlines which are the third choice for Polish-Americans who obviously are loyal to LOT while perceiving Western European airlines as a second choice of carrier. It?fs noteworthy that when Polish-Americans like the airline and are traveling to Polish cities other than Warsaw, their LOT loyalties appear to evaporate rather quickly, as is the case with Polish-Americans flying Lufthansa.
Graph 1 below shows that currently LOT is the most frequently used airline for traveling to ECE, followed by Lufthansa (40 percent) and British Airways (27 percent).
Graph 1. Airlines used by Polish-Americans to fly to Eastern and Central Europe 
Ninety seven percent of Polish-Americans have traveled to Poland at least once in their lifetime, and 44 percent make the trip at least once a year, the survey found. Unlike the majority of mainstream travelers, Polish-Americans heavily rely on the advice of their travel agents when purchasing tickets. One marketing tactic that doesnt seem to work in the Polish market is developing frequent flyer loyalties. When Polish-Americans do get on board they value aircraft quality, service and food quality, airlines brand, quality of the logistics and security, in no particular order.
The study also addresses the growth in upstart airlines on the domestic Polish market; the competition they face from Western airlines; assesses brand preferences and reveals tactics that work when marketing airline services to Polish-Americans.
View Cart
