VILNIUS - Faced with the surge in fuel prices, Lithuania's flagship carrier Lietuvos Avialinijos (Lithuanian Airlines) began imposing a temporary 14 litas (4.06 euros) fuel surcharge on one-way flights beginning June 5.
"We have decided to refrain from raising the prices of tickets, opting for a temporary measure instead. The surcharge will be eliminated as soon as the prices of fuel go down," said Dalijus Zebrauskas, director of LAL sales and marketing department.
Passengers who have acquired tickets by June 5 will be relieved of the new surcharge.
A similar surcharge had been opted by LAL partners and other air carriers, he added.
Lietuvos Avialinijos, a state-owned carried that is scrambling to adjust to the new competitive environment in the single market, has been offering lower fares for all routes to EU destinations. The cost of a one-way ticket starts at 150 litas, excluding airport fees, although the low fares do not account for more than 10 percent of seats on a plane.
LAL announced this week that it intended to boost the number of weekly flights to Paris, Berlin and Hanover. The number of direct flights to Paris will rise to five beginning July 1, while there will be two weekly flights to Berlin and Hanover during the summer.
The company will also open a route to Italy by the end of the year. The destination has not been determined yet.
In the first five months of 2004, LAL carried out 1,620 regular flights with a total of 123,300 passengers on board, a rise of 20.9 percent from the January-to-May period last year.
On May 17 LAL renewed a cooperation agreement with Spanish flagship carrier Iberia, under which the Lithuanian carrier will offer routes to Madrid and Barcelona via Brussels and Frankfurt.
