Being just a PAX I can't speculate too much, but as a Lithuanian in Ireland I just don't understand how they couldn't manage to keep DUB-VNO profitable. Both FR to KUN and EI to VNO are _always_ completely full (ok ok, make it 95%). I flew EI to VNO two weeks after they opened the route - even then it was probably some 80% loaded. Oddly enough, BT couldn't take the competition either... No more going home every month for me. Sorry, too personal.
That aside, the whole thing looks like a very nice scam. It's true that FlyLAL Charters belong to the same owners as the airline. It's also true that none of the two own any airplanes - apparently they belong to
Avia Asset Management, which (I think) also belongs to the same owners. There's also FlyLAL technics, which is said to be quite profitable.
Their attempt to sell the scheduled airline to Lithuanian government for 1LTL to "save the company" and then a couple of weeks later announcing that it was sold to some unknown Swiss holding company (which was established there in ___Dec, 2008___, previously having existed in Bermudas and UK) is at the very least suspicious. The said Swiss holding has a capital of 100000CHF (~67k EUR) and was supposed to take care of the company for some rumoured, unknown middle eastern owners.
The figures of the price and the loan (1m LTL + 1m EUR), mentioned above in this thread, were later admitted as being only rumours too.
The management are now trying to keep the public updated on
their blog, which opened on a free service site, 9 days before going bust (interesting timing and approach... considering they had their office internet supply cut off and restored today). The blog in itself is not a bad thing and is apreciated, but the stuff that I've seen there makes me wonder about stuff...
* 3 days before going bust, a post about "What kind of routes are feasible from Vilnius", which has a quote about how they didn't have the right sized (smaller) planes for some of them. Well, what about SAAB's? Why waste money on B757s then? The conclusion of the post - we'll open more routes in summer.
* 2 days before going bust, a post about how their pricing transparency was better than Ryanair and Airbaltic - lots of optimisim - "please buy tickets"
* on the day of going bust, a post (now removed) about how they are trying to reach their partners in Switzerland. The dialogues described in there were utter BS, and reminded me of how some of the clients in my life tried to avoid paying me. Quotes where something along the lines of "the transfer probably got stuck somewhere in between the banks" and also a mention of some sort of "a weird, never seen, financial instrument, which can't be cashed". As I said - the post is gone (wonder why...), can't quote precisely.
At least now they have some info there for stuck passengers about their code-shared flights... Except that the info is not exactly the good news - only KLM is helping out (discount prices for connecting TE bookings using flights from RIX/TLL/WAW to AMS and
reroute for KL bookings). Everybody else either refuse to honor the tickets/missed connections, or "no info".
I hope nobody minds I'm not a pilot, but there doesn't seem to be much "aviation" in this story anyways...