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Flights to Riga will be able to resume from May 18 and to Tallinn from May 25.
Probably won’t fly yet
However, Marius Gelžinis, the head of Lithuanian airports, says that airBaltic, having received permission from Lithuania to resume flights from Vilnius to Riga and Tallinn, is unlikely to resume them yet, as he would like to fly more. to Dublin, London, Norway and There are very few passengers between the Baltic countries.
The first airBaltic flight from Vilnius to Riga was scheduled for Wednesday, but the company postponed it to a later date. According to M. Gelžinis, it is not yet profitable for the company to start this journey.
“They planned to start earlier in the hope of other directions, those in which our workers would fly: to Norway, Ireland, the United Kingdom, but since the connection is only between the Baltic countries, they still do not have a goal, because the number of passengers would be too small, ”M. Gelžinis told BNS.
“There is very little interest and it makes no sense, because Latvia is not yet open enough, there is nothing to fly to Riga, because the transit would not take place either,” he added.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and country restrictions, Air Baltic suspended all flights from the Baltic countries on March 17.
Starting Friday, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia will allow their citizens free movement between countries. When traveling through these three countries, citizens of the Baltic States will not have to justify the purpose of the trip and observe 14 days of self-isolation if they did not come from other countries.
Airlines lack criteria on where and when to fly
The head of Lithuanian airports says more companies would like to fly, but they say they do not know the clear criteria of the Lithuanian government to which countries and when to fly.
According to M. Gelžinis, the requests have been submitted by the Hungarian airline “Wizzair” and the Belarusian “Belavia” since last Friday, but neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Government have approved them yet.
“There is an unclear system and unclear selection criteria. (…) There are no criteria for which country is safe, there is no list of countries and those criteria are decided on a case-by-case basis. It is worrying for airlines because they would like to know clearly if it is still worth negotiating with us or if they are looking for other countries to start flying, “the airport manager told BNS.
According to him, Wizzair would like to fly to London, Alesund and Bergen (Norway), Belfast (Northern Ireland), Belund (Denmark), Kiev, Turku (Finland) and Belavia to Minsk.
“SAS has not yet made decisions on flights to Copenhagen at the end of May, they are waiting for clearer selection criteria,” Gelžinis said.
In Lithuania, the airspace for passenger and ferry flights was closed on April 4.
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