Air Lituanica

Air Lituanica was a Lithuanian airline headquartered in Vilnius and based at Vilnius Airport. It ceased operations in .

History

Air Lituanica was registered in late . It was named after '' Lituanica'', an aircraft commanded by Steponas Darius and Stasys Girenas, two pioneer Lithuanian pilots that flew it on a transatlantic flight in 1933. The carrier sole owner, ''Air Vilnius Group'', had an initial investment of LTL0.5 million. ''Air Vilnius Group'' was in turn owned by ''Šiaurės miestelis'', which had been registered on as a subsidiary of the Vilnius City Municipality. Plans were to collect LTL43.5 million (EUR14 million) from a number of investors for the establishment of the new airline.

Air Lituanica was established in . The activation of the company was partly accelerated by the fact that Lithuania would take position in the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from to . In - when the airline's air operator's certificate had not yet been granted but it already had 27 employees – Air Lituanica announced Brussels as its first destination, with services to start on .

Air Lituanica launched ticket sales in early using Estonian Air's booking channels. Also in early , the airline signed a contract for the lease through 2015 of an Embraer E-170 from Estonian Air. Air Lituanica received its air operator's certificate on ; and started flight operations four days later, on 30 June 2013, serving the Vilnius–Brussels route with the leased Embraer E-170. Air Lituanica thus became the first Lithuanian scheduled airline to operate since FlyLAL-Lithuanian Airlines and Star1 Airlines ceased operations in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

An 86-seater Embraer E-175 leased from ECC Leasing Company, an Embraer subsidiary, entered Air Lituanica's fleet in ; Embraer handed the aircraft over to Air Lituanica two months later than planned. The carrier started flying its second route, Vilnius–Amsterdam–Vilnius, on 8 July; with its first two routes, the airline contributed 2 percent of the international airline capacity in Lithuania, and , the company ranked in terms of available seats to and from Lithuania. It added Berlin Tegel Airport in Berlin, Prague, and Munich to its route network on 5 August, 20 September and , respectively.

Following allegations of missed payments from both parties, Estonian Air unilaterally terminated its leasing agreement with Air Lituanica for the Embraer E-170 in which forced Air Lithuanica to end service to Amsterdam and Berlin, the routes on which it used the E-170. Service to Amsterdam ceased on .

In , Air Lituanica announced that it would begin flights to Gothenburg and Malmö, Sweden, to be served on a seasonal basis between and , and that it would resume flights to Amsterdam.

Air Lituanica ceased flight operations on . It filed for bankruptcy on 8 June 2015.

Destinations

Air Lituanica served the following destinations:

Fleet

At the Air Lituanica fleet consisted of a single Embraer 175. 

See also

* Transportation in Lithuania

References

External links

*

{{Use dmy dates, date=September 2019

Defunct airlines of Lithuania
Airlines established in 2013
Airlines disestablished in 2015
Lithuanian companies established in 2013
Aviation in Vilnius
Companies based in Vilnius
2015 disestablishments in Lithuania