Vilnius and airports in Lithuania

[davidjohnson6]

As all are aware, flyLAL ceased operations 3 months ago. Normally when an airline stops flying and there is a gap in the market, other airlines will step in to try to pick up some business as happened with Sterling in Copenhagen, particularly as Lithuania is part of the EU.

While Brussels Airlines have started a new route, other airlines in the EU have been rather quiet on this. Furthermore, airBaltic have cut some of their routes from Vilnius this month.

I know that Ryanair have a few routes to the UK, Dublin and Hahn from Kaunas (about 2 hours drive away), but I'm puzzled as to why Lithuania as a country is left with no routes to any of France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary or, most surprisingly, Sweden.

Yes, the economy is taking a hammering and airlines are hurting at the moment, but even the LCCs haven't announced new routes.

Anyone know why announcements of new routes have been so quiet ?

[jockebill]

I know that AirBaltic is making flights via Riga to over 50 destinations:ok:. There is up to 7 flights per day between Riga and Vilnius. One problem in Vilnius is that the airport taxes are very high, I think that is a reason why LCC's not operating on Vilnius.

[davidjohnson6]

As the airport is state owned and operated by the Ministry of Transport.... one would imagine that the Govt would wish to encourage other airlines to start new services given the rather reduced connectivity to other countries there is today. Is the Govt making any serious noises on this ?

[alm1]

Yes, they are. They lowered taxes a lot and there are almost no taxes for a significant period for new routes.

[thebig C]

Yeah, I am puzzled as to why more airlines have not increased frequencies or started new routes, especially to serve the Lithuanian diaspora in Western Europe who all visit home regularly.

Then again, I was puzzled as to why FlyLAL could not make more of a go of the Dublin route!

C

[Envoy320]

Assuming airlines do their market research.....They probably haven't started routes to this little served destination due to lack of demand.

if they started a route to vilnius....they get the monopoly on the route....they get 100% of the pax....

BUT if 100% of the passengers still isn't enough to be profitable, then they won't start the route.

No great surprise is it...!

[Charlie Roy]

Aer Lingus now offering Vilnius to New York (via Dublin). Timings and prices are interesting.

[Envoy320]

Why are the timings interesting....?

The flights connect.....not too long a wait....not too short....

[alm1]

Vilnius Airport announced today that Skyways Express will start 4 new routes from Vilnius in May: Stockholm (12 weekly), Amsterdam (10 weekly), Copenhagen (5 weekly) and Berlin (3 weekly).

[jpthomas72]

Well, so far the Skyways flights are only announced by the press agencies, this is not announced on Skyways website or the airport website (even in Lithuanian). I believe it when the flights are bookable. Things in Lithuania are a bit shaky at the moment esp. the economy (Capital of Culture practically cancelled), and the connecting flights via e.g. Frankfurt and Vienna for business travel, and Ryanair to Kaunas for the common people, seem to cover the current demand. BA withdrew from Vilnius twice already, in much better times. AirBaltic made a clever move to connect Palanga, and they now go to Riga about 7x a day. The current amount of flights should just be enough until things look better. I think it's pretty much the same number as 2003. Other airports would be very happy about this list.

[jpthomas72]

Just to say that the new flights are now confirmed ! Not only by press release on the VNO airport website, but also by Skyways.se themselves. I asked them via the contact webform and they answered (!) - Nice customer service for you there. Bookable from their website from next Monday. Checking airport departures, I have the impression things are stable up there, which has to be good news looking at LT's 12.6% shrinking economy in Q1/09.

Juergen
(next itinirary: LGW->VNO via RIX on BT 20May, KUN->BHX on FR 22May)

[jpthomas72]

Skyways have scaled down their plans for VNO:
"This week, Skyways the Swedish airline and Vilnius Airport have signed a cooperation agreement on direct service Vilnius-Stockholm-Vilnius (twelve weekly flights) and Vilnius - Copenhagen - Vilnius (five weekly flights). The flights will start on 2 June." Official press release here:

News (http://www.vilnius-airport.lt/en/naujienos/detail.php?ID=5200)

Which means no flight to Berlin :-(

[jpthomas72]

Aer Lingus announced a daily VNO-LGW from 10th September
(though bookable only from 25th October currently) as part
of a larger LGW expansion. Very good news ! Breaks Ryanair
and Air Baltic's monopoly on affordable flights into LT.

I can report that VNO looked like a ghost-airport last time
I used it in May, no over-night stoppers just one Air Baltic
Fokker 50 and the Aurela B757. Air Baltic had such a good
run, they used a B757 on the RIX-VNO segment.

Juergen

[TBSC]

Star1 will generate some traffic, too.
Skyliner - aviation news & more (http://www.skyliner-aviation.de/viewphoto.main?LC=nav2&picid=5775)

[Charlie Roy]

Interesting news about Star1.

Wikipedia says they are planning the following destinations
Star1 Airlines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HC_Airways)

Dublin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin), http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Flag_of_Ireland.svg/22px-Flag_of_Ireland.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Ireland.svg) Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ireland)
London (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London)[Gatwick][1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HC_Airways#cite_note-0), http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg/22px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg) United Kingdom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom)
Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris), http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/Flag_of_France.svg/22px-Flag_of_France.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_France.svg) France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France)
Milan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan), http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg/22px-Flag_of_Italy.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Italy.svg) Italy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy)
Barcelona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona), http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Flag_of_Spain.svg/22px-Flag_of_Spain.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Spain.svg) Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain)


So they are also looking at Gatwick it would seem. And Dublin, another Aer Lingus route.
Frequencies and schedules would be of interest to see how much these 2 would be competing / complimenting each other...

Eitherway it's great news about the new Aer Lingus route! :ok:

[Finknottle]

Rumours are that Star1 will commence the LGW-VNO route with 4-5 flights per week as early as June 29th which is excellent news.

Prior to January 2009, London to Vilnius was served by 14 flights per week and was the most popular route from Vilnius so I am surprised it has taken until now for someone else to offer the route.

Unfortunately FlyLAL went bankrupt after taking on airBaltic in a pricewar they could never win due to the outrageous tax breaks that airBaltic were given by Riga Airport. AirBaltic ditched the LGW-VNO route and increased their flights on VNO-RIX and RIX-LGW as soon as LAL went bust in an effort to retain the customers who were previously flying London-Vilnius.

AirBaltic are almost certain to reopen the route (and have already started making noises that they intend to restart it) when someone else starts it up so we could have 3 airlines to choose from by October. But I know who I will be choosing to book my flights with... and it certainly isn't airBaltic!

[jpthomas72]

Thanks for the interesting summary, Finknottle.
I know the national airline going bankrupt was a dark
day for the proud Lithuanian soul.
The Star1 flights are now bookable at:

Star1 Airlines - Home Page (http://star1.aero/index.php/en/)

It's Stansted and Gerona, to be precise, for London and
Barcelona respectively.
Yes, will be interesting to see how Air Baltic try to counter
this attack.
Looking through the articles about this, I spotted something
with Lufthansa and Riga airport (sorry to be geographically
a bit off-topic),
written in Lithuanian. My skills are poor there, my guess is either
LH withdraw from Riga, or they plan to open a mini-base there ?
An interview with Harro Julius Petersen. Sorry, I've lost the link.
Surely we'll here about this. Again something to do with the Riga
airport fee 'intransparency'...

[jpthomas72]

Found the article again. Maybe Herr Petersen is just
moaning that LH don't get a red carpet at each landing.
(I'm allowed to say this about LH's high nose, being German).

"Lufthansa": Rygos oro uostas elgiasi nes??iningai - Verslas - Verslo naujienos - Verslo ?inios (http://vz.lt/2/straipsnis/2009/06/11/Lufthansa_Rygos_oro_uostas_elgiasi_nesaziningai)

[alm1]

No, Lufthansa is moaning that Ryanair and Airbaltic got big (up to 80%) discounts in Riga and that was not fair (those discounts will be discontinued from November).

[flying_shortly]

yeeks... Star1 are twice the price of Aer Lingus...

[Finknottle]

It is indeed great news about Star1. They only have 1 plane to begin with (to operate 3 scheduled and 5 charter routes!) but hope to have a 2nd plane by the 2nd half of the summer when they will increase the frequency from London and add routes from Vilnius to Milan and Paris. :)

Petersen is having a valid moan about the discounts that Ryanair and airBaltic have had at Riga Airport since 2005 which equated to tax breaks of €16m (they were also both charged €1 per aircraft for ground handling at one stage!).

He also goes on to slag off Riga's claims to be a hub for northern Europe when they don't have any flights to Asia.

The tax breaks were basically the main reason why airBaltic were able to win the pricewar with flyLAL. Poor management from LAL and a lack of support from the Lith government also helped. FlyLAL were trying to sue airBaltic but the information on the tax breaks didn't surface in time and have only recently become public knowledge. The agreement signed by Ryanair was for the tax breaks upto 2015 and now that Riga Airport have withdrawn them with effect from November there are fears that Ryanair could now sue the airport!!

Couple of interesting articles if you want to know more...
Riga Airport President hopes Ryanair will not sue the airport for canceling discounts :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics (http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=14602)
Ryanair was charged just EUR 1 for aircraft ground handling at Riga Airport :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics (http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=14531)

[Charlie Roy]

London - Vilnius
Star1: evening (1820) flight from Stansted
Aer Lingus: morning (0700) from Gatwick

Vilnius - London
Star1: late afternoon (1700) flight to Stansted
Aer Lingus: noon (1225) to Gatwick

I think both London services can compliment each other due to the fact that different airports are being served, and at different times.

PS - regarding Vilnius to Dublin, I notice Aer Lingus operate morning flights with Dublin based aircraft, and Star1 will operate night flights with a Vilnius based aircraft...

[thebig C]

Hey

Who exactly are Star1?

Good news about the Aer Lingus flights. They really were a no brainer considering Aer Lingus already have a relationship with Vilnius airport, servicing the Lithuanian diaspora in Ireland. Also, Vilnius had no connection to London, and EIs base in Gatwick fits hand-in-glove with FlyLALs former route. There is also a sizable LT community in South East England.

C

[jpthomas72]

Two small news bits from Vilnius:
Looks like scheduled FlyLAL is not dead just yet:

flyLAL will renew flights from Vilnius if the case against airBaltic and Riga Airport is won :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics (http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=15186)

Star1 flights to Stansted are operating now, very nice
to see London back on the VNO departure board:

Departure schedule real time (http://www.vilnius-airport.lt/en/flights_schedule/index.php?show=departures)

I checked the reg, it's a former Hamburg International
plane, 10 years old, nothing wrong then. This is I believe
currently the only LY-registered plane doing scheduled
flights. They already play the patriotic card in their PR,
rightfully so.

[jpthomas72]

Good news from Vilnius (already indicated by VNO's chief's somewhat cool comments about the Lithuania Express project recently): AirBaltic watched the game long enough, and found it's about time to resurrect its VNO base properly, with flights to TXL, CDG, MUC, AMS, FCO, 3x weekly and more, starting as soon as mid-December. I tried the direct VNO-TXL and this is bookable already. These are exactly the airports 'Lithuania Express' wanted to serve. Of course, I do hope they find a few other gaps and still will start-up, I know people in LT would like to see more LT-registered planes at their airports. AirBaltic do stay away from Britain though, which is now pretty well covered with AerLingus and Star1. Find the full list here:
Aktuelle Routennews - airliners.de - Forum (http://forum.airliners.de/index.php?showtopic=42128&st=1650&p=529956&#entry529956)
Some interesting comments from their CEO about VNO:
Press releases (http://www.airbaltic.com/public/40817.html)
Makes you wonder if the CEOs from Wizzair and Easyjet are aware of this new deal.

[ConstantFlyer]

I think Vilnius may be the only EU airport still to have regular scheduled passenger flights operated by Antonov 24 aircraft. The flights go to Kiev-Borispol and are operated by Donbassaero four times a week. If you fancy going, though, hurry up, as I understand there are plans to switch to a Saab 340 service.

[jpthomas72]

After a quite dire time, here's a bunch of good news from VNO (ok, apart from the first one, but this was an adventure by the Irish):
- Aer Lingus to stop LGW flight on 27 Mar 2010, now official (not bookable beyond this date).
- Air Baltic to re-start VNO-LON, airport t.b.c., but likely LGW as they already do RIX from there (LHR could be more interesting though due to the connections maybe as BA or BD/LH code-share, LCY surely also has its charms, but both very unlikely), official announcement to come next week.
- Estonian Air to launch AMS flight in February in cooperation with KLM.
- SAS already re-started Copenhagen flights.
People interested in VNO would probably agree that all this means no gap in the market for the projected 'Lithuania Express' start-up anymore (who mentioned BER, CPH, AMS in their statement back in October).
I do hope though that Star1 can keep a decent share of the London market, as it's still the only LT-registered plane doing scheduled flights. STN is far enough from LGW to have a different group of people as customers.
All of this is not great news for MOL and FR at KUN (apologies for the Schadenfreude, but we at BHX are not too unhappy if things don't go his way...)

[Charlie Roy]

Air Baltic to re-start VNO-LON, airport t.b.c., but likely LGW

They confirmed it would be Gatwick on their Facebook page in the comments under the status update made at: 12 January at 12:25 (http://www.facebook.com/airBaltic?v=feed&story_fbid=247648736563&ref=mf)


airBaltic | Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/airBaltic)

[IJM]

They confirmed it would be Gatwick on their Facebook page in the comments under the status update made at: 12 January at 12:25

Not doubting this is the case, but would they not be better confirming it on their website first? Have had a glance and can't see any mention of it.

[jpthomas72]

To add that Palanga/Klaipeda airport (PLQ), the airport for the scenic Curonian Spit, now has a 3x daily (!) flight by SAS to Copenhagen. PLQ would also be a good destination from VNO (as esp the rail connection is not yet properly developed, and it's quite a while to drive), but that's not re-started yet, but we'll see when the summer holiday season starts. AirBaltic do frequent PLQ-RIX, which works for them for hub connections.
The only reason I speculated about AirBaltics's VNO-LON was that the press release (from Baltic Course website -> Transport) somehow oddly said 'London' without stating the exact airport, I guess LHR was never really on the cards. LGW is ok, the traditional airport for LON-VNO since the good old days of Lithuanian Airlines.

[jpthomas72]

As mentioned in a seperate thread: Looks like people in the US are wondering to connect VNO, RIX, LED and other places in the region to NYC:

Baltia Air Lines (http://www.baltia.com)

The website has decent design and some content. No flight or reservation details though (all new long-haul airlines are under a UKIA suspicion these days...) Looks like a very adventurous project in the current day and age.
However if realised could be great. Am wondering if a passenger B747 ever landed in VNO (oh, it did, Air Force One :) ).

[jpthomas72]

Further expansion from BT at VNO, see details here:

Press releases (http://www.airbaltic.com/public/41546.html)

Check these mad flying hours, you can now do a UK-Baltics flight in traditional 'red-eye' transatlantic fashion :)
Th 1/4 00:50 Manchester 05:55 Vilnius BT676 Economy Class, T
Sa 3/4 22:40 Vilnius 00:10 Manchester BT675 Economy Class, T

Should be noted though that their LGW-VNO is just twice weekly, quite low in frequency, I guess they planned this before EI retreated. BT clearly in expansion mode, of course if all of this works out remains to be seen. Some routes are in competition with other airlines.

[Finknottle]

LGW-VNO is starting off as only 2 days per week but this is to the end of March. I am fairly certain they will increase the frequency with EI pulling out at the same time. London was historically the most popular route from Vilnius so the demand should be there for airbaltic.

[Seljuk22]

Vilnius:
BT: London (LGW), Paris, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome, Hamburg, Manchester, Dublin, Oslo

Star1: London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Milan, Barcelona (GRO)

Kaunas:
FR: Barcelona (GRO), Birmingham, Berlin (SXF), Bremen, Dusseldorf (NRN), Bristol, Edinburgh, Brussels (CRL), London (STN, LTN, LGW), Dublin, Milan (BGY), Frankfurt (HHN), Oslo (RYG), Liverpool, Paris (BVA), Tampere

Some routes like Munich, Rome or Tampere don't have any competitor but almost all the others relate to each other in competition.

[jpthomas72]

Thanks Seljuk22, was first wondering: Where does he get all those FR routes from ? It's as KUN has been announced as base today:

News : Ryanair Announces 40th Base at Kaunas (Lithuania) (http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-announces-40th-base-at-kaunas-lithuania)

I tried to get some frequencies, but e.g. SXF-KUN, LGW-KUN, NRN-KUN are not yet bookable. Maybe that will help public transport links from KUN which are still poor (esp from the terminal to Kaunas-1 train station). Substituting the various FR destinations with their real location (worst probably is Beauvais, but also Weeze, Hahn), they will serve different groups of people than Vilnius. Not so sure so many people will now go from KUN instead of VNO. BT is e.g. pretty unbeatable w.r.t. frequencies via RIX to many place in Europe.

[jpthomas72]

Bad news: Lots of cuts from Kaunas to Germany: Bremen, Weeze and Schoenefeld going. Only remaining German destination is Hahn. From article on airliners.de.
Good news: Kaunas main station is back for the fast train to Vilnius. There is a regular bus from the airport. No more confusion about a 'Kaunas-1' station then.

[Noxegon]

Not that it's necessarily relevant, but for those who've not been there; VNO airport is seriously cool. The front of it is almost an art deco building, like something from another era. Highly recommended for anyone interested in such things...

[jdcg]

I can only agree about Vilnius - the old terminal is really amazing and atmospheric. I was at Lviv airport in the summer too and that's pretty cool, although they won't let you take pictures from the outside! But VNO is definitely the prettiest.

[pee]

From Baltic Business News (http://balticbusinessnews.com/article/2011/3/1/airbaltic-to-cancel-four-routes-from-vilnius):
Starting from March 27, the Latvian national airline airBaltic will cancel four routes from Vilnius, namely to Dublin, London, Rome and Paris, writes The Lithuania Tribune with reference to Baltic News Network.

According to the airline, these routes will be cancelled since other airlines operating to or from Vilnius are offering identical routes.

Among others, Ryanair and Wizzair have recently announced new routes from Vilnius that will be overlapping with the ones operated by airBaltic.

"The world has enough destinations, and we prefer to avoid overcrowding so that our planes would not fly side-by-side with other airlines," said Tadas Vizgirda, Lithuanian area manager of airBaltic.

[Nothrills]

I would expect Wizzair to cancel some routes next (starting with NYO and BGY), if not withdraw totally from VNO.

[alm1]

I would expect Wizzair to cancel some routes next (starting with NYO and BGY), if not withdraw totally from VNO.I think BGY can easyly support 5 weekly flights. There was twice as much capacity several years ago when Airbaltic and flyLAL both flew to MXP. Stockholm destination also used to have more capacity.

The bloodbath will be to Rome, 6 weekly flights are too much, I would expect Wizz or Ryanair to withdraw.

[airhumberside]

I would expect Wizzair to cancel some routes next (starting with NYO and BGY), if not withdraw totally from VNO.
Why? They are very able to compete with Ryanair if they feel VNO is worth fighting for. And there are plenty of alternative destinations they could look at if they wish to have less head-on competition with FR

[widey158]

Russian and Lithuanian media reports that the Moscow-based "SkyExpress" acquired a permission from Russian authorities (Lithuanian still pending) to fly Moscow-Kaunas route. According to director of the airport the negotiations are still not over.

Such route would give Russians an additional alternative to fly to Western Europe using LCCs – Ryanair has a two-plane base in Kaunas.

SkyExpress operates B737-300 and B737-500 aircraft.

[jpthomas72]

Spotted on theairdb and checked on Skyways.se: Skyways are re-starting at VNO, a daily VNO-TXL, with onwards connections e.g. to GVA, daily except Sat, starting 7th June. Flight numbers and duration indicate it's their own and a direct flight (JZ0130, JZ0131). Another nice addition to VNO's recovering timetable. This means from next year, it won't be cramped and aging TXL anymore, but the great shinny new Willy-Brandt-Airport BER ! They also seem to do again the daily early-morning ARN flight. The onward-connection TXL-GVA is a code-share, probably ? But with whom, only EZY does that route, and it's from SXF (yes, GVA is quite under-served from BER), and they don't code-share of course.
About LT airports: The FR thread said that KUN-SXF would be back, but still not bookable again.
BTW, I've recently used the official 'Lithuanian Airlines' plane - which these days is the Wizzair A320 based at VNO with all-LT staff, to LTN. Nice, worked well, and well-filled (ok, got stuck at immigration at LTN, but that's not their fault).

[jpthomas72]

... and Estonian stop flying VNO-TXL from 30May. Now that was short-lived. FR still doesn't have KUN-SXF open for booking, so maybe was really just a rumour. Skyways' smaller aircraft (a F50 I presume) is a much better choice for this market. Will be interesting to see how the Wizzair vs. Ryanair fight at VNO develops, I'd think Wizz could consider e.g. DTM, CGN or FMM. We'll see.

[Jamie2k9]

FR still doesn't have KUN-SXF open for booking, so maybe was really just a rumour.

It will be bookable soon. An early morning departure from KUN. Expected to operate on Sun, Wed and Fri.

[Wozik]

There are fresh rumors that Wizz is canceling the VNO-NYO and opening something new. The funny thing is that the call center still persuades the ticket owners that the flights would happen.

[Jamie2k9]

Flights are only bookable until 31 May. After that they are all sold out between then and October. I would think there will be a German route added.

[jpthomas72]

... and theairdb tells us that German route is, surprise, surprise, DTM ! Wizzair's biggest German base.

[Narrow Runway]

It was always going to be DTM really, wasn't it?

Surprise from Wizz? Unlikely.

[jpthomas72]

Though it's not strictly VNO: Booking TXL-GVA on Skyways.se is not possible anymore, and also if you go to BT, they show it as >470 EUR for all of July, August. Typical sign of "This route will actually not be operating" (i.e. in case of BT, they will book you onto GVA-RIX-VNO instead). Was wondering how Skyways thought they could enter the BER-TXL market, surely LH has friends who wouldn't really like this. TXL-VNO is however still there. Is Skyways in more general trouble ? They seem quite erratic (reminds me of BaBoo). This is a bit annoying for me as I'm planning a BER-VNO, but now not sure Skyways will still fly this, while FR's SXF-KUN still not bookable.
For Wizz, sure, DTM is the obvious choice, just that every sensible immigrant (and German for that matter) is moving to the South (Stuttgart, Munich, Karlsruhe etc) for work, or Rhein-Main (Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Mainz). DTM area is a bit poor.
--- Correction 1st June:
This Skyways TXL-GVA has appeared again ! Starting 29th August.

[Jamie2k9]

FR's SXF-KUN still not bookable.


Route will not happon now. Removed from system last week. Slot problems in Berlin.

[jpthomas72]

Just spotted that Hamburg Airways (the new name of the well-known Hamburg International HHI) has a few bi-weekly Wednesday flights from various German airports, e.g. on 27th July DUS-VNO-DUS, this is connected with the same into TLL a week earlier, so there are troops (excuse the pun) of 150 rich elderly German tourist transversing the Baltics in June and July. I see this has already been done last year. Good for them (and the Baltic economies). By contrast, with the GBP going a down the cliff, all the money moved by the immigrants from UK to LV and LT is worth much less :(.

[Charlie Roy]

Interesting article on the Lithuania to Sweden market's recent evolution:
Sweden – Lithuania market grows by 700% in a year! | anna.aero (http://www.anna.aero/2011/06/02/sweden-lithuania-market-grows-by-700-in-a-year/)

[jpthomas72]

The spat between Mr. Flick and the LV government now even made it into airliners.de.

Flick: I am airBaltic?s guarantee of stability :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics (http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=42303)

Thanks for PPRUNE's search function, we do have a forum already for this:

http://www.pprune.org/nordic-forum/261392-air-baltic-43.html

Which mentions this rather unflattering article:

Kampars: airBaltic is close to bankruptcy :: The Baltic Course | Baltic States news & analytics (http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/transport/?doc=42089)

LT has since moved-on from BT (near-monopoly to VNO for a while) to FR and WZZ, but we do still remember how BT helped to kill-of the national carrier. FR recently cancelled SXF-EDI, so maybe the slot is free again :-) BT has surely lost a _lot_ of VNO-via-RIX business recently to FR and WZZ (i.e. me). And opening-up TXL-GVA (with Skyways) will not go down well with the local forces at BER (LH, AB, EZY). Interesting times !