New direct route opens between Budapest and Vilnius

Lithuanian flag carrier FlyLAL has announced that it would offer passengers a direct air link between the Budapest Ferihegy Airport and Vilnius starting this autumn. The Budapest Airport (BA), the German-owned company which operates Ferihegy, appears to be particularly pleased with flyLAL’s decision to launch regular service to Vilnius, as it will help strengthen the airport’s goal of turning the airport into the primary East/Central European hub, where travelers from other countries in the region can fly to in order to catch connections to destinations in the West, as well as in northeastern Europe. The new flyLAL service will be the 100^th regularly-scheduled route operating from Ferihegy.

Although there are already 87 flights per week from Budapest-Ferihegy to destinations in Scandinavia-many of which are now served by low cost carrier Wizz Air-this new flyLAL route will be the first time that Hungary’s capital is connected to a city in the Baltic region. Previously, the only way for passengers to travel to the Baltic states was to catch a connecting flight in western or northern Europe.

The flight from Budapest to Vilnius takes approximately two hours and the main benefit of landing at this airport is that it will allow passengers to travel to any other major city in the Baltic region, which has a total population of 7.2 million.

Budapest Airport is also keen to attract new airlines, since last year’s departure of Slovak discount carrier SkyEurope, which was a major player at Terminal 1.