Latvian carrier Air Baltic is dropping flights from Vilnius to Dublin, London, Rome and Paris, blaming overcapacity caused by the Vilnius airport discount scheme.
The airline will cease the four routes from the Lithuanian capital from March 27, stating that “new market entrants in Lithuania have created identical products, resulting in overlapping of routes, and overcapacity”.
In a statement Air Baltic continued that “both Ryanair and Wizzair have announced new routes in Vilnius that overlap with those served by airBaltic. The world is big enough, and we [would] rather walk away from the crowd, to avoid the other two airlines flying wing-to-wing with each other”.
The carrier said that the Vilnius airport discount scheme “appears to have backfired, resulting in overcapacity on just a handful of routes rather than broadening the choice of routes, as intended by the scheme”.
Air Baltic also serves London Gatwick daily from the Latvian capital Riga, where the airline is based.
For more information visit airbaltic.com.
Report by Mark Caswell
