LOT Polish Airlines Fires Its CEO

Poland’s national airline LOT has fired its CEO Rafal Milczarski, it said on Wednesday.

Milczarski was also dismissed as the CEO of LOT’s parent company Polish Aviation Group (PGL), following a decision by the Supervisory Board.

Until replacements are found, Katarzyna Lewandowska will serve as chief executive of LOT and Elzbieta Bugaj will take over at PGL.

Milczarski had been chief executive of LOT since 2016 and took up the post at PGL in 2018.

Some trade union leaders welcomed his dismissal.

“Milczarski will go down in the history of (LOT) as one of the worst bosses who notoriously violated workers’ rights and persecuted independent union leaders,” Piotr Szumlewicz, chairman of the Trade Union Alternative, told private Radio Zet.

“He should have lost his job a long time ago.”

Industry executives say he had defended labor reforms which he viewed as necessary for the airline to survive the industry’s worst economic crisis following the pandemic, which prompted widespread restructuring in the sector.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, additional reporting by Anna Koper and Tim Hepher, editing by Louise Heavens and David Evans)

This article was from Reuters and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].