Wizz Air Adds Vilnius – Dortmund Link

Central and Eastern European low-cost carrier Wizz Air is to inaugurate a three times weekly link between Dortmund and its new Vilnius base in Lithuania from July 26. The budget operator launched its activities at the Baltic facility in April, deploying a single Airbus A320 to operate on eight routes to Barcelona, Bergamo, Cork, Doncaster Sheffield, Eindhoven, London Luton, Rome Fiumicino, and Stockholm Skavsta.

This is its first route between Lithuania and Germany, although Lufthansa already provides links from Vilnius to Frankfurt and Estonian Air has recently added a link from the capital to Berlin Tegel, a route Swedish regional carrier Skyways will also launch in June. Ryanair also offers flights between Kuanus and Frankfurt Hahn. An estimated 296,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two countries in the past year.

Wizz Air yesterday (May 19) celebrated the seventh anniversary of its launch, a period during which it has established itself as one of the leading low-cost carriers in Europe, particularly in Central and Eastern markets. It now has 15 bases across Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic and carried more than 10 million passengers for the first time in 2010, up 22 per cent on the previous year.