OREANDA-NEWS. July 12, 2011. By the passenger traffic of June this year, Vilnius International Airport (VIA) exceeds the figure of June last year by 24.5%. The number of passengers in the first summer month soared to 186,100, reported the press-centre of Vilnius Airport.

Last month 16 airlines operated 2,599 flights along 28 routes from Vilnius, showing the growth of 5.7%. The number of passengers taking regular flights skyrocketed by as much as 32.5%, whereas charter flights witnessed a slight passenger decrease by 0.5%.

“The improving results show that Vilnius International Airport is on the right path. We hope that the growing passenger flows will attract more airlines to Lithuania, and new routes will be launched,” Eligijus Masiulis, Minister of Transport and Communications, commented on the airport results.

The number of passengers on board of aircrafts operating regular flights saw the increase as well, in particular the airlines offering flights to Frankfurt, Dublin, Kiev, Riga, Brussels and Prague.

Nevertheless, the charter airline Small Planet Airlines, which carried 17% of all the passengers travelling from Vilnius Airport in June, takes the leading position in the general passenger transport market. Ryanair, operating its flights from Lithuania for the second month, carried 15% of passengers, whereas Wizz Air, which has offered its flights from mid-April, carried 13% of passengers. The passenger traffic of the Latvian carrier airBaltic amounted to 12%, whereas the German Lufthansa carried 8% of passengers and the number of passengers carried by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) equalled to 5%.   

“People are less likely to choose charter flights, and tend to plan their travels on their own,” VIA Managing Director Tomas Vaisvila says, “such a tendency is illustrated by results: compared to the figures last year, the passenger traffic on charter flights decreased, whereas the number of independent travellers rose by more than one third.”

In July the principal airport of the country expects to operate more than 630 flights per week. In early August the leading airport in the country will receive its millionth passenger this year. In 2010 the millionth passenger travelled in mid-September.