Lithuania’s airport system: Winds of change

Lithuanian Airports CEO, Simonas Bartkus, tells Joe Bates more about the growth and development of the country’s three main airports – Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga.

These are busy and exciting times for Lithuania’s airports, particularly for jewel in the crown Vilnius (VNO), which earlier this year opened its new Departures Terminal and officially unveiled its symbolic new name – Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis International Airport.

The developments follow an impressive 2024 for Lithuania’s capital city gateway, which finally exceeded pre-COVID traffic levels when a record 4.8 million passengers passed through its facilities.

However, to say that VNO’s passenger numbers are back on track after the pandemic would be doing it a huge disservice because as well as COVID, the gateway has also had to deal with the loss of services to the former key markets of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia over the last three years due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

VNO’s ability to fill the void by attracting new airlines and growing its route network to the west, north and south, boosted by a significant upturn in outbound travel, means that VNO now has a very different traffic mix to the one it had in 2019.

Indeed, today, Germany (15%), Italy (11%) and the UK (9%) are the biggest markets served from VNO compared to the the UK (16%), Germany (12%) and Ukraine (8%) back in 2019.

As a result of the change, the busiest scheduled routes served from VNO in the first four months of 2025 were Warsaw, Riga and Frankfurt and the biggest of the 15 scheduled airlines serving Vilnius today in terms of market share are Ryanair, airBaltic and Wizz Air followed by LOT, the Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines, Austrian and SWISS) and SAS.

Between them they all effectively operate short-haul flights to Europe, although the list of 51 destinations served from VNO also includes a handful of scheduled services to West Asia.

Passengers destined for destinations outside of Europe tend to catch connecting long-haul services out of hubs such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Munich and Warsaw.

“Managing to replace the traffic we lost to the east is an amazing achievement for us,” enthuses Simonas Bartkus, CEO of Lithuanian Airports (LTOU).

“Our route network has undergone a significant transformation and, it continues to grow and develop, reflected by a double digit increase in passenger numbers in Vilnius in the first four months of 2025 compared to the corresponding period last year.

“While the number of international visitors to Vilnius and Lithuania is still slightly down on pre-COVID levels, we have coped with the new dynamic by accommodating more outbound traffic as the number of Lithuanians travelling abroad has hit record levels.

“We now have way more traffic to the west, north and south than we did in 2019, which has helped us compensate for the fact that we no longer serve Ukraine – which accounted for substantial passenger numbers – Belarus or Russia.”

VNO’s network development has certainly been helped by economic growth in Lithuania, which continues to grow at a faster rate than any of the other Baltic states.

He points out that VNO’s number of Mediterranean destinations spread across Turkey, Italy, Spain and Greece have grown hugely over the last five years to meet demand, while Lithuanians principally living abroad in Ireland, Norway, UK and Spain account for the bulk of VFR traffic.

Worthy of mention is the fact that for the first time ever Vilnius will have direct flights to Budapest in Hungary, Prague in the Czech Republic, Catania in Italy, Tel Aviv in Israel, Bergen in Norway, and Tirana in Albania this summer.

While the Egyptian resorts of Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh, Burgas in Bulgaria, the Greek island of Rhodes, Tivat in Montenegro, the Portuguese island of Madeira and a handful of resorts in Tunisia and Turkey will be served by charter flights.

All help ensure that based on passenger traffic, VNO is the second biggest airport in the Baltic states after Riga and the largest airport in Lithuania by some way as Kaunas – located only 100 kilometres from Vilnius – currently handles around 1.4mppa and Palanga close to 400,000.

As you would expect from an airport located just five to six kilometres from Vilnius’ historic old town, VNO serves as Lithuania’s main international gateway and airport of choice for the bulk of the country, the exception being for those living in the north who would either use Palanga or Riga in Latvia.

New Departures Terminal

Opened on February 4 this year, the new 14,400-square-metre Departures Terminal has doubled VNO’s passenger capacity to 2,400 per hour, paving the way for Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis international Airport to handle 8 million passengers annually by 2030.

The first floor houses the check-in area with self-service baggage drop-off stations, public spaces, cafés, and other commercial zones, as well as airline offices.

The second floor accommodates security screening, departure, and arrival gates for passengers travelling within the Schengen area. The terminal also features two new passenger boarding bridges, allowing direct boarding onto aircraft.

The new terminal is connected to the old passenger terminal via a spacious gallery, ensuring seamless movement between the terminals.

Lithuanian Airports notes that during the terminal’s construction, significant improvements were made to the transportation infrastructure in front of Vilnius Airport.

Engineering networks were upgraded, road surfaces were renewed, and new canopies for passengers and vehicles were installed. The revised traffic scheme now accommodates higher transport volumes, making access more convenient and user-friendly.

Bartkus says: “The new terminal is needed because Vilnius Airport has been operating above its design capacity of 3.5 million passengers per annum for quite some time. It is part of our wider transformation plan for the airport’s terminals.

“By providing passengers with a higher level of comfort, we are also enhancing the competencies of our teams and raising service and air travel standards.

“The more spacious, brighter, and twice as efficient Departure Terminal also marks a new stage in technological advancements for us, as for the first time in the history of Lithuanian airports, dozens of new systems have been implemented and synchronised – from self-service innovations to safety and risk management solutions that minimise human errors.”

Next on the agenda VNO

With the new Departures area now up and running, Bartkus says that it is time to upgrade some of the remaining older gate areas and create an expanded new Arrivals Terminal.

Before then though, and beginning in mid-2025, the airport will redesign and repurpose the old check-in area into an airside commercial zone with shops, lounges and F&B outlets. This conversion is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.

Simultaneously, the planning and construction of a new €50 million Arrivals Terminal is expected to start shortly with its completion anticipated by the end of 2028, by which time VNO should be equipped to handle around 10 million passengers per annum.

This would certainly put VNO on the front foot for decades to come in terms of its key infrastructure as, under LTOU’s most optimistic long-term plan, it isn’t expected to handle 10 million passengers per annum until the late 2040s, and then possibly 13mppa by 2052.

More immediately, LTOU is currently considering the merits of 11 architectural concepts for the new Arrivals Terminal to have been submitted in an international tender.

The concepts are publicly available on the official competition website, https://vnocompetition.lt/ and are also on display at the offices of the Lithuanian Architects’ Union (LAS).

According to Lithuanian Airports, the architectural competition aims to create a new, functional arrivals terminal that will be integrated with the newly opened departures terminal and the renovated central plaza.

“At this stage, we want the public to have the opportunity to explore the submitted ideas and see what the future holds for Vilnius Airport. This project is a continuation of the airport’s transformation, already symbolised by the recently launched Departures Terminal,” says Bartkus.

“By implementing these changes systematically, we are building a modern and efficient airport infrastructure for all passengers.”

Bartkus notes that VNO’s single runway is adequate for its needs, so with the exception of some additional remote parking space for aircraft and taxiway renovations, the airport’s airfield doesn’t require a major upgrade.

VNO name change

Although most people will always call it Vilnius Airport, since January 1, 2025, its official name has been Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis International Airport in honour of the prominent Lithuanian artist and composer.

Bartkus remarks that he is considered Lithuania’s Leonardo de Vinci and therefore one of the most important Lithuanians of all time, yet arguably few people outside of Lithuania are familiar with his work.

“It is a symbolic gesture by the government to honour the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of our most famous citizens,” he comments.

The initiative is part of a year-long celebration of his life, and will remain the official name of VNO until December 31, 2029, after which a decision will be made whether to keep it or not. Bartkus believes that the name change will be permanent.

As previously mentioned, the bold cultural gesture also coincides with major upgrades to the airport, which are expected take at least another five years to complete.

Kaunas and Palanga airports

Although in the shadow of VNO, LTOU’s other airports of Kaunas (KUN) and Palanga (PLQ) are also growing and expanding their route networks, the upturn in numbers at both gateways ensuring that a record 6.6 million passengers (+10%) used its airports in 2024.

This summer Palanga is being billed as a gateway to Turkey and Egypt due to regular charter flights to Antalya in Turkey and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Amsterdam, Dublin, Oslo, London, Riga and Copenhagen are also served from the gateway to serve the needsof both business and leisure travellers.

While KUN’s route network, effectively driven by low-cost carriers, includes a number of destinations in Greece, Croatia, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom served by both scheduled and charter flights.

LTOU also hasn’t forgotten about them when it comes to developing their key aviation infrastructure. Palanga, for example, boasts a newly modernised terminal, while the operational capabilities of Kaunas are being boosted by capacity doubling upgrade and extension to its terminal and recent completion of a northern runway expansion programme.

The extension of KUN’s terminal is expected to be completed in Q3 2025 as LTOU invests close to €60 million on upgrading its airport infrastructure this year.

On the back of a strong summer season, Lithuanian Airports is predicting a modest 3.5% rise in traffic across its airports this year to reach 6.8 million passengers by year’s end.

“While summer is busier than winter, we do have extremely strong shoulder seasons, which basically means that the traffic levels at our airports remains pretty much the same from May until October, so passenger numbers and flights are fairly consistent and we don’t have to cope with the big July/August summer peaks experienced at most European airports,” explains Bartkus.

A big ambition of LTOU is for VNO to get a transatlantic route by the end of the decade, although Bartkus is realistic enough to accept that it won’t be easy.

“It’s kind of our North Star in terms of route development,” he says. “We are not sure if we will succeed in this ambition or not as there is plenty of competition and our existing route network feeds traffic into the hubs of many different airlines, but it is an ambition, is achievable, and we will not give up on it.”

Sustainability

Bartkus reveals that Lithuanian Airports has an ambitious target to make Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga net zero gateways by 2030.

He notes that the new Departures Terminal at VNO has 5,000 square metres of solar panels on the roof that will generate around a third of the facility’s electrical needs.

VNO’s plans to reduce carbon emissions include replacing all petrol/diesel fuelled buses and ground power units (GPUs) with electric powered vehicles/equipment.

And there are also plans to build a new 4.5MW solar farm elsewhere on the airport site as well as a 1.2MW solar array at Kaunas and a 0.4MW plant at Palanga in line with LTOU’s ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.

Vilnius joined ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation programme in 2016 and has achieved Level 3 ‘Optimisation’ status in the programme. Kaunas and Palanga both hold Level 2 accreditation.

Bartkus concludes: “We are very serious in all our ambitions and, in the case of achieving net zero operations by 2030, we are well on our way to achieving the goal.”