AirBaltic Announces 13 New Routes

On December 10, Latvian flag carrier airBaltic announced several new routes from their focus cities of Vilnius and Tallinn. The airline continues its expansion in the Baltic region with 13 new routes for Summer 2020.

airbaltic's business plan sees the Airbus A220 (pictured) becoming the sole aircraft type in the carrier's fleet by 2025. Photo by Chris de Breun │ AeroNewsX.

New connections from Vilnius include flights to Gothenburg (twice weekly), Hamburg (thrice weekly), Zurich (twice weekly), Dubrovnik (twice weekly) and Rijeka (once weekly). Additionally, the airline has increased frequencies to a number of European cities from Vilnius, including to Berlin Tegel (six weekly up from four weekly), Munich (five weekly up from three weekly), Riga (forty one weekly up from thirty one weekly) and Tallinn (eleven weekly up from seven weekly).

The announcement comes as a great milestone for Lithuania’s main air gateway, Vilnius International Airport.

Aurimas Stikliūnas, Head of Lithuanian Airports Aviation Services Division, said: “The launch of these new connections is a true milestone in our route development strategy. After negotiating for more than two years, this outcome is very important for Lithuania‘s main air gateway. With numerous business and tourism partners involved in the negotiations, we profoundly hope that these new routes will not only enhance tourism, but will also boost business opportunities for foreign and Lithuanian enterprises.”

The airline has also announced new services from the Estonian capital city, Tallinn. New flights to Hamburg (four weekly), Rome (twice weekly), Zurich (thrice weekly) and Nice (twice weekly) will be launched during the Summer 2020 season.

airBaltic unveiled its Estonia livery earlier this year. Photo by Chris de Breun │ AeroNewsX.

In a Press Release, Martin Gauss, CEO of AirBaltic, said: “As we continue to grow, we aim to provide the best connectivity to and from all three Baltic capitals. When evaluating, which destinations to launch from the Baltic capitals, we are at first looking for the most demanded ones among the local passengers. Because of that, we provide additional contribution to local airports, offering new travel opportunities. By next summer, we will already serve 16 destinations from Estonia, 11 from Lithuania and over 70 destinations from Latvia.”

AirBaltic is the national carrier of Latvia with Vilnius and Tallinn as its focus cities. The airline has a fleet of 737s, A220-300s and Dash-8 Q400s. In recent years the airline has quickly expanded into new markets and signed partnerships with industry giants to further enhance its one stop travel strategy.