OREANDA-NEWS. The Latvian airline airBaltic will replace Air Lituanica flights and rescue the stranded passengers, affected by today's suspension of operations of the Lithuanian carrier.

Martin Gauss, Chief Executive Officer: "Our home market for airBaltic is Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. We will consolidate and strengthen our service in our home market by offering more direct flights. We announce the first direct routes out of Vilnius to Western and Northern Europe today and will evaluate additional ones gradually. We will rescue the stranded passengers in the first days following the suspension of flights, and will offer special rescue fares for customers booked for flights later in the summer.

Furthermore, today's event in Vilnius is a strong signal that the three Baltic countries should take a common approach to their aviation, to best support travellers, new economic activity, and new jobs."

airBaltic is the first airline to rescue Air Lituanica passengers. The affected passengers are required to contact Air Lituanica staff or their travel agent for assistance. With immediate effect, airBaltic will offer all passengers holding Air Lituanica tickets for travel on and after June 6, 2015 special 59-89EUR one-way fares that can be booked via airBaltic call centre.

airBaltic also announces the immediate opening of new direct routes from Vilnius to Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Warsaw, Helsinki, available on www.airBaltic.com  shortly, in addition to the existing Vilnius - Amsterdam, and Vilnius - Riga routes.

airBaltic serves over 60 destinations from its home base in Riga, Latvia. From every one of these locations,airBaltic offers convenient connections via North Hub Riga to its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, CIS and the Middle East. In addition, airBaltic also offers new direct flights from Tallinn, Vilnius and the Baltic seaside resort of Heringsdorf.