Air Lituanica (Vilnius) has ceased its operations as of today. All passengers holding tickets until May 29 will be rebooked on airBaltic (BT, Riga) while remaining passengers will either get a refund or be rebooked on Air Baltic as well if agreed.
The carrier commenced flights in July 2013 with an wet-leased E170 from Estonian Air (Tallinn Lennart Meri) before adding an EMB-175LR, LY-LTF (c/n 17000017) to its fleet a few weeks later. In late 2013, Estonian Air terminated the wet-lease contract and a commercial cooperation with the Vilnius-based airline claiming non payment leading to a legal dispute.
Air Lituanica again had two aircraft when it wet-leased a CRJ200 from Cimber (Sønderborg) from March 1, 2014. The regional jet was later replaced by a DOT LT ATR72 in July 2014 and later by an E145 from bmi regional (Aberdeen Dyce) in late August. In its last months of existence, Air Lituanica again wet-leased a twinjet from Estonian Air and returned the British operated aircraft.
Furthermore, Air Lituanica wet-leased an ATR42 from DOT from January 2015 onwards, meaning that the airline had three aircraft in the end of which just one was operated by itself.
Air Lituanica was founded by the Vilnius Municipality which also held a stake through Start Vilnius. Several other local companies and institutions had also invested in the project. The ongoing losses of the company that were partly born by the taxpayer led to several political disputes in Lithuania.
As of today, the Lithuanian airline operated flights from Vilnius to Amsterdam Schiphol, Berlin Tegel, Billund, Brussels National, Hamburg Helmut Schmidt, Munich, Paris CDG, Prague Václav Havel, Stockholm Bromma and Tallinn Lennart Meri. Air Litunica was the only scheduled airline in Lithunia leaving the Baltic country without an own scheduled airline now.
However, Wizz Air (W6, Budapest) has three A320-200s based in Vilnius and Ryanair (FR, Dublin International) operates with two aircraft based in Kaunas International.
