The situation in Vilnius Airport...

Vilnius International Airport is the biggest and most frequented airport in Lithuania. It is also the only airport in the area of the capital city of the country.

This airport suffers from a number of ailments. The first and most painful is that you can't actually fly anywhere from it for a number of reasons. It was up until recently the most expensive airport in the region in terms of taxes. Also, until recently and one of the main airlines, FlyLAL, which used to have many destinations out of it, suddenly folded at the beginning of 2009 leaving only a handful of places to go.

The other company that used it regularly, AirBaltic, based in Latvia, then decided to withdraw all of its flights except for those connecting with Riga in an attempt to make more money in Riga. The result is that people looking to actually fly somewhere overlook the airport completely because it is a waste of time.

Of course if you are Mr. Money bags and can afford to fly with an expensive airline like LOT or Lufthansa, the airport is still accessible from some places directly, but otherwise you will have to change in Riga to get there. This can mean a 400 kilometre flight could take up to 10 hours or so depending on the connection in other airports.

Recently Swedish airline Skyways begun flights to the airport, but only to Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Apart from the dearth of flights to the airport, it isn't too bad. It is a very small airport with a simple layout, good for those in a hurry.

The building is as such -

walk in the door, check in, get to the gate, all within a few minutes. It is unlike airports like Brussels, Kuala Lumpur, Frankfurt AM, Heathrow etcetera where one needs a GPS and a motorbike to get between gates in time and without extra fuss.

Of course this smallness makes it a boring airport to wait in. There are a handful of dutyfree shops, which offer close to nothing except perfume and sunglasses - stuff which you can get anywhere. There are no tourist trinket shops worth mentioning, but you can buy bus tickets for the city you are leaving in the kiosks there. It makes perfect sense.

There is not free wireless internet.

Baggage handling is quick and I have yet to lose a bag there. There is no restaurant, but people can buy snacks in the cafe, which sells packaged sandwiches, croissants and chocolate bars.

To get the airport, a number of buses and minibuses are available depending on where you are. As these change, it is better not to list them here, but ask for them when you get to the city.

A new train from the airport to the city was recently built and can be used, but it is about 200 metres from the terminal and you will need to look carefully for it. There is little signage.


AIRLINES SERVICING THE AIRPORT (at the time of writing):
Aer Lingus
Air Baltic
Austrian Airlines
Aviavilsa (cargo)
Brussels Airlines
Czech Airlines
Donbassaero Airlines
Estonian Air
Finnair
LOT Polish Airlines
Lufthansa
Norwegian Air Shuttle
Skyways
Star1 Airlines
UtAir