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Representatives of Lithuanian Airports presented forecasts for the aviation sector in 2020, which show that after the global challenges of the pandemic, the extremely rapid recovery of passenger aviation will take place as early as this July. According to aviation experts, although the total number of passengers and flights for the whole year will be marked with a negative sign (compared to the record-setting previous ones), the return plans for airlines and the acceleration with which the market of scheduled flights is recovering in our country are very positive with already as many as 70 planned destinations.

Aurimas Stikliūnas, Head of the Aviation Services Division of Lithuanian Airports, states that passenger aviation is gradually gaining momentum in June, as the monthly passenger flow, rising from the bottom of April and May, is growing not by a percentage, but by times.

"We are in constant contact with the airlines that operated at all three Lithuanian airports before the pandemic, so it is basically gratifying that almost all of them are already operating now or will return to our airports from July, will maintain the former directions, and some will even add new ones. It can be said that the possibilities of air travel start to return to the previous volumes rather quickly”, comments Aurimas Stikliūnas, Head of the Aviation Services Division of Lithuanian Airports.

After 2019, which was a record year for all Lithuanian airports in terms of both the total number of passengers and flights - it is forecasted that this year about 3 million passengers should travel through the airports, or about half as much as last year.

"July should be the time when we see a rapidly recovering market in every sense, almost all airlines operating at our airports have announced their returns, and some charter flights are resuming in parallel. It can be said that the “spring air pit” has resulted in a loss of more than one and a half million passengers flow, but by the end of this year we should see that passenger and air traffic level reaches about 80 percent of the same period of last year", says A. Stikliūnas.

The total number of flights this year is expected to be about 38 thousand, which will be about 39 percent less than last year.

Experts say that at this pace, passenger aviation should reach a full recovery or record flows of 2019 by the end of 2021.

Representatives of Lithuanian airports claim that the restoration of air traffic will depend on how the world will continue to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, but our flight development strategy, route promotion, discounts on tolls and involvement in the aviation recovery process by our partners and their support (business, tourism and government organizations) will be very important.

About Lithuanian Airports

The Lithuanian airport network includes three air gates in Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga. During 2019 they served 6.5 million passengers and 62 thousand flights.

Last updated: 2020 06 26

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