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Lithuanian Airlines

Having its base in Vilnius, the Lithuanian Airlines, better known as FlyLAL, is the flag carrier of Lithuania. Lithuanian Airlines operates international and domestic scheduled flights across numerous destinations in the world, mostly to and from its primary base in Vilnius International Airport.

Founded on the 20th of September in 1938, Lithuanian Airlines began operating on the 29th of September in 1938 for offering passenger flights with a fleet of two Percival Q-6 planes. The first flights of Lithuanian Airlines were operated from Kaunas to Riga and Palaga. With the occupation of Lithuania in 1940 by the Soviet Union, all the Lithuanian flights were started being offered by one of the regional Aeroflot (Soviet airline) branches. During the first quarter of the year 2007 Lithuanian Airlines was declared to be the carrier of the maximum number of passengers from the country of Lithuania. Carrying passengers from Palanga and Vilnius airports between January and March, this airline is recorded to transport 107, 6, 000 passengers, which is 18% more than the previous year.

Lithuanian Airlines was reorganized and renamed as Lietuvos avialinijos on the 20th of September in 1991 just after Lithuania became independent. It was structured in accordance with the fleet of Aeroflot that had its base Vilnius. Between the years 1991 and 1993 Lithuanian Airlines reorganized its network of routes from the Soviet countries to the western part of Europe. In the mean time, the Western aircrafts replaced the planes made in Russia. Boeing 737-200 was included in the fleet of Lithuanian Airlines in 1991. By 2005 all the shares of this airline was successfully acquired by the Lithuanian government.

After running loss for about ten years, Lithuanian Airlines abandoned its plans of starting a trans-Atlantic operation. Also after accumulating ten million litas as arrears, Lithuanian Airlines was transformed into a private company and was purchased by “LAL Investiciju Valdymas” and thus got its name “FlyLAL Lithuanian Airlines” from this company.

Fleet of Lithuanian Airlines: