Lithuania’s Transport Minister confirmed that the country’s government is willing to spend money to finance new routes from/to the country’s airports, including London Heathrow Airport (LHR).
Willing to find funds
In a meeting on March 24, 2026, Juras Taminskas, the Minister of Transport and Communications of Lithuania, when an opposition lawmaker, Simonas Kairys, expressed concern about the country’s connectivity and its financial reserves to attract and subsidize new routes, responded that Vilnius Airport (VNO) losing the London City Airport (LCY) route was “unfortunate.”
Taminskas continued that the government is willing to finance other new routes, including to LHR.
“If there is an airline willing to fly, because it does not depend only on us, it also depends on the carriers, those funds will be found.”
However, Taminskas did not go into detail in response to Kairys’ remark about why the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Lithuanian Airports (LTOU), Simonas Bartkus, will not continue in his role after July.
Instead, Taminskas affirmed that, despite the change in leadership, processes are continuing as planned.
Later, the Minister explained that the decision not to renew Bartkus’ mandate was mutual between the Board and the CEO, and that the government would begin an open, international search for a new chief executive without providing a concrete timeline.
Connectivity to London
The VNO-LCY route, which initially started as a public service obligation (PSO) and later switched to a risk-sharing partnership, will end on March 27, leaving the Lithuanian capital with only Ryanair and Wizz Air’s services to either London Luton Airport (LTN) or Stansted Airport (STN).
LOT Polish Airlines has been operating the route since it began on May 1, 2019. Bartkus previously confirmed in an interview with The Engine Cowl that the route was canceled because of insufficient demand, with load factors on flights hovering around 67%.
When LTOU confirmed on January 12 that flights from VNO to LCY would end, several stakeholders, including the British Chamber of Commerce in Lithuania (BCCL), expressed concerns about the loss of the route.
Replacing the route with direct flights between VNO and LHR would, arguably, be an improvement, given the number of connections available at LHR, including, for example, to the United States.
That is easier said than done, but it is not impossible, as British Airways previously operated flights to Riga Airport (RIX). The flights, which included a codeshare with RIX-based airBaltic, were short-lived, beginning in June 2024 and will also end on March 27.
Still, with LHR slots very limited, airlines with slots at the airport will evaluate whether there are other markets that would yield higher revenues, compared to – even if subsidized – flights to VNO.
A tender for a similar risk-sharing partnership to the VNO-LCY flights was launched in 2025 for direct connections between VNO and Madrid Barajas Airport (MAD), with a bid submission deadline of August 5, 2025. However, nothing came out of it, and VNO still lacks a direct connection to MAD.
There have been successful risk-sharing partnership examples, including airBaltic’s flights from VNO to Düsseldorf Airport (DUS), Hamburg Airport (HAM), and Lisbon Airport (LIS).
Ryanair serves flights between Kaunas Airport (KUN) and MAD twice weekly, per Cirium’s Diio Mi. KUN is located around 100 kilometers (62.1 miles) to the west of VNO.
Rytis Beresnevicius
