Speaking about the future plans of Lithuanian airports, the Minister of Communications Marius Skoudis claims that he received a promise from one campaign about even better connections between Lithuania and the United Arab Emirates. He also hopes that this year it will be possible to talk about directions to Lisbon, as well as more frequent flights to Munich and other German cities.
"I am still hopeful this year, with the airports having all the tools, new routes and good knowledge. We are also talking about Lisbon, from the side of the Government, connections with Germany are very important to us, just because of the brigade", said M. Skuodis in the program "ELTA Kampas".
"The frequency of flights to Munich will increase, but we need new routes to Dusseldorf, I hope the flight to Hamburg will be revived. We need additional connections from other Lithuanian airports as well," he assured.
Meanwhile, regarding the potential direct flight to the United States of America, Mr. Skuodis could not say when it might appear, but he emphasized the importance of such a route and favorable trends in aviation.
"We can hardly expect large planes that will land in Vilnius and fly to JAV, because of the need for more passenger traffic, but now more and more smaller planes are being introduced to the market that fly further. This opens up certain opportunities for us, as does the growing passenger traffic. We have the US as one of the target markets with which we need direct contact," said the politician.
The General Director of Lithuanian Airports (LTOU) Simonas Bartkus Eltai has said that a direct flight from Lithuania to the United States of America could appear within the next 5 years.
The joint order of the Ministers of Transport and Economy and Innovation has approved priority destinations important for business and inbound tourism, among which are such cities as Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Lisbon, New York, Brussels, Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow and others.
At the end of October, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Economy and Innovation and Vilnius city municipality signed an agreement on the promotion of routes important for business and incoming tourism. The purpose of the agreement is to unify and coordinate the capacities of different institutions in order to ensure sustainable flights and passenger flows in strategic directions.
Ignas Dobrovolskas (ELTA)