airBaltic has announced that it has filed its schedule for the winter 2026/2027 season, which will begin in late October 2026, adding 12 new routes from four airports, including an expansion of its Gran Canaria Airport (LPA) base and a new base at Tenerife South Airport (TFS).
On March 24, 2026, airBaltic unveiled 12 new routes for the upcoming winter 2026/2027 season, including 10 that originate and/or arrive outside its traditional bases across the Baltic states. From LPA, the airline will operate twice-weekly flights to Katowice Airport (KTW), Liège Airport (LGG), Poznań Airport (POZ), and Warsaw Chopin Airport (WAW).
From TFS, the new routes will include LGG, Ljubljana Airport (LJU), and Palanga Airport (PLQ), with two weekly frequencies except for PLQ, where airBaltic will offer a single weekly departure on the route.
TFS, in addition to LPA, will become a seasonal winter base, the carrier pointed out.
At Kuusamo Airport (KAO), located in northern Finland, airBaltic will fly to Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), Hamburg Airport (HAM), London Gatwick Airport (LGW), Manchester Airport (MAN), and its main hub, Riga Airport (RIX). All routes from/to KAO will be once-weekly, operated on weekends.
The 12 routes signal that airBaltic is looking to expand beyond its traditional customer base and offer leisure routes for customers seeking, for example, to spend time in Finland’s north. Cirium’s Diio Mi showed that during the winter 2025/2026 season, TUI offered flights from both LGW and MAN to KAO.
TUI’s Belgium division also had year-round flights from LGG to TFS in 2025 and limited connections to LPA. Both routes did not make it beyond early January 2026.
Mantas Vrubliauskas, the Vice President of Network Management at airBaltic, emphasized that the winter season is important for the airline’s leisure customers, and as such, the Latvian airline has to make decisions around new routes “well in advance to secure the best opportunities for them.”
“With additional routes to sunny destinations such as Gran Canaria and Tenerife, alongside new connections to Kuusamo for winter sports and Nordic experiences, we continue to diversify our network and adapt to evolving travel demand.”
However, a notable omission from the new route announcements is Vilnius Airport (VNO) and Tallinn Airport (TLL), two other airBaltic bases located in its home region, especially since the airline will be taking delivery of five Airbus A220-300 aircraft in 2026 alone, at least according to its current plans.
That is despite the fact that, in Lithuania at least, demand remained strong in 2025, in contrast to Latvia, where a slight “improvement in economic conditions was only partially reflected in passenger traffic trends,” according to airBaltic’s annual 2025 report.
“Lithuanian airports, including Vilnius and Palanga, served approximately 7.2 million passengers in 2025, representing an increase of around 8% compared to 2024. This stronger performance underscored the relationship between higher GDP growth and increased demand for air travel, as improved economic conditions translated more rapidly into higher passenger volumes in the Lithuanian market.”
While in 2025, airBaltic still had to deal with Pratt & Whitney PW1500G engine shortages and longer turnaround times at repair shops, which prevented the airline from operating its full fleet, in 2026, it expects a “full operational deployment of the fleet.”
Rytis Beresnevicius
