OREANDA-NEWS. July 08, 2014. July marks operation of State Enterprise Lithuanian Airports (Lith. Valstybes imone Lietuvos oro uostai (LTOU)) with its three branches – Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga. Gediminas Almantas, former head of State Enterprise Vilnius International Airport, will take the position of LTOU Managing Director.

Passengers flying from and to Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga will not sense any changes. Aircrafts will take off and land as before; all operations of the airports will take place as usual. In the meantime, the administration of activities of the three Lithuanian airports will become more effective and modern.

Arturas Stankevicius, former airfield operations manager at Kaunas Airport, will become the manager of LTOU Vilnius branch. Bruno Kaspar, former head of strategic development projects at the Infrastructure Department of Vilnius Airport will be in charge of Kaunas branch, while Marius Gelzinis, former head of ground handling at Palanga Airport, will become the new leader
of Palanga branch.

LTOU will operate under the principle of airport network. Such a method of managing several or several tens of airports is very popular worldwide. The networks of Scandinavian airports are especially successful.

Following the good global practice and the experience accumulated in Lithuanian airports, the new organisation will not only seek to ensure aviation security and effective management and development of airport infrastructure. LTOU is determined to improve the quality of airport services, to increase their diversity as well as to apply contemporary management methods and systems in order to ensure that the airports of Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga do not only develop and use their infrastructure effectively but also improve the quality of passenger services and expand their range. What is more, one of the key strategic targets for LTOU is the development of the Route Development Fund. This fund would aim at attracting and maintaining new routes from the three network’s airports.

It should also be noted that the merger into a single network will not make the airports of Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga lose their identity, i.e. the individual brands of the three airports used to this day will remain. They will only be supplemented by a logo of the airport network.