Head of Aviation Services at Lithuanian Airports, Aurimas Stikliūnas, states that increasing number of passengers and offered flights prove that prognosis for recovering civil aviation is reasonable.
“Already in spring, when preparing our prognosis for accelerating pace of civil aviation in summer we were not sure about the fact, how quickly this will happen. Now we can firmly confirm that the first months of summer even exceeded our expectations. People‘s wish to travel after the pandemic did not vanish and this is evidently proved by parameters of passenger traffic and carried out flights“, notes A. Stikliūnas.
Considering pace of recovery, Lithuania is one of the leaders
According to the aviation expert, when assessing July data, Lithuanian Airports surpassed the media of flight traffic in other European Union members at the same period and according to recovery pace is one of the leaders in the continent; Lithuania is at the fifth place.
“Lithuanian airports rapidly approach previous record flight traffic in 2019. 3,8 thousand flights were carried out in this year July, meanwhile the year before this number reached almost 5,6 thousand. We can be happy also with the fact that compared to the previous year, the number of flights in all three international airports increased almost by a third“, says A. Stikliūnas.
According to the expert, the best result was registered in Vilnius airport, where compared to the last year July, increased number of flights more than 44 percent. Kaunas Airport was the second, where number of organized flights increased by 16 percent.
Increasing demand
In July, Lithuanian airports also registered an intensive increase in number of passengers. Compared to July of the previous year, number of passengers in all three international airports increased almost by 94 percent.
The biggest increase in demand was registered in Vilnius airport. Number of passengers in this airport increased more than twice. At the same period, Kaunas Airport reached an increase of 65 percent and Palanga Airport 17 percent.
“When assessing such a rapid recovery of demand for travel itineraries, we can draw a conclusion that travelers are trying to use summer as effectively as they can. Some of the travelers used this chance to go for a long-waited vacation, others chose travelling for a weekend and some people travel to meet their business partners, clients, colleagues. It is evident that independent of the travel goal, flights in this period are very needed and as we see now, this trend will also last in August“, says A. Stikliūnas.
According to the Head of Aviation Services of Lithuanian airports, compared to June, number of passengers in July increased almost twice and the biggest increase in demand was registered in Palanga airport.
More cargo flights
Previous month resulted in a higher number of organized cargo flights, as well. Compared to the same period last year, the number of transported cargos in Lithuanian airports increased almost 26 percent and reached 1811 tonnes. In addition, this year parameter was higher than in 2019, when transported cargo weighted 1427 tonnes.
The biggest quantity of transported cargo was registered in Vilnius airport, 1372 tonnes, meanwhile Kaunas took the second place with 438 tonnes and lastly Palanga airport with 0,15 tons.
What passengers should know before the flight?
Representatives of the Lithuanian airports point out that due to carried out checks of additional documents and health certificates before the flight, procedures in the airports could take longer than before the pandemic.
Passengers are asked to consider their time for a test and its result, and to include this time into an ordinary recommended arrival time to the airport. Travelers are recommended to arrive at the airport at least 2 hours in advance before their scheduled flight.
All passengers are asked to check the newest requirements imposed to arriving travelers by other countries. It is recommended to check the official information sources of institutions based in other countries and if there is a need, to speak to representatives of air carrier, which sold the travel ticket.
About Lithuanian Airports
The network of Lithuanian Airports consists of three international airports in Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga. In 2020 Lithuanian Airports served 1.8 million passengers and 30 thousand flights.
