Key Takeaways
- Vilnius is Lithuania in the air. Vilnius International (VNO), in the south-east of the country, serves around 56 regularly-served nonstop destinations. It is Lithuania's only true hub and handles the bulk of the country's scheduled passenger flights, including its small handful of long-haul links.
- No nonstop flights to the United States. None of Lithuania's three airports has a scheduled nonstop flight to North America. Travellers connect through a larger hub such as Warsaw, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Riga or Istanbul.
- Kaunas is the low-cost engine. Kaunas (KUN), in the centre of the country, is a low-cost airport built around Ryanair and Wizz Air, with a dense web of seasonal links to the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Spanish costas.
- Palanga is the seaside gateway. Palanga (PLQ), on the Baltic coast, is the gateway to Lithuania's seaside and the port city of Klaipeda. It runs a small set of leisure and connecting routes, anchored by airBaltic to Riga and low-cost links to Scandinavia and the UK.
- A low-cost market with no flag carrier. Lithuania has had no national flag carrier since flyLAL collapsed in 2009. Ryanair, Wizz Air and Latvia's airBaltic now carry most passengers, with network carriers such as LOT, Lufthansa, Finnair and Turkish Airlines feeding their hubs.
Lithuania is the largest of the three Baltic states, a country of about 2.8 million people wedged between Latvia, Poland, Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Its commercial-aviation map is compact and concentrated: just three airports carry scheduled passenger service, and one of them handles most of the traffic.
That airport is Vilnius International (VNO), beside the capital in the south-east of the country. After Vilnius come Kaunas (KUN) in the centre, a low-cost hub built around Ryanair and Wizz Air, and small Palanga (PLQ) up on the Baltic coast. The map and table below rank Lithuania’s airports by the number of destinations they serve with regular flights, drawing on live AirportRoutes route data.
Can you fly nonstop to the US from Lithuania?
No. None of Lithuania’s three airports has a scheduled nonstop flight to the United States or anywhere else in North America. The country has no long-haul flag carrier, and its busiest airport, Vilnius, tops out at intercontinental routes to the Gulf, Turkey, Israel and Central Asia rather than the Americas.
To reach the US from Lithuania you connect through a larger hub. The most common one-stop options are Warsaw (LOT flies onward to New York, Chicago and other US cities), Helsinki (Finnair), Frankfurt (Lufthansa and United), and the regional airBaltic hub at Riga, just across the Latvian border. Istanbul and the Gulf airports work too for many US destinations. Because carriers avoid Belarusian and Russian airspace, some eastbound routings now run a little longer than the map suggests.
RANKED BY DESTINATIONS
Lithuania's airports with scheduled service
By regularly-served nonstop destinations (live AirportRoutes data). Vilnius leads as the only real hub, Kaunas is a busy low-cost airport, and Palanga is the small Baltic-coast gateway.
| Airport | IATA | Serves | City / region |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Vilnius International | VNO | 56 | Vilnius |
| 2. Kaunas International | KUN | 27 | Kaunas |
| 3. Palanga International | PLQ | 6 | Palanga / Baltic coast |
A closer look at Lithuania’s airports
✈️ Vilnius International (VNO)
Vilnius International, about 6 km south of the capital’s old town, is Lithuania’s flagship airport and the only one with a genuinely international network. Opened in 1932, it has grown into the country’s main gateway and handles the majority of Lithuania’s passenger traffic. A new departures terminal and a reconstructed runway are part of an ongoing modernisation of the airport.
VNO reaches about 56 regularly-served nonstop destinations, including roughly eight intercontinental links to the Gulf, Turkey, Israel and Central Asia, by far the widest network in the country. Frequent routes include Warsaw, Riga, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Istanbul. It is also the Lithuanian base for airBaltic, which connects the city to its Riga hub and beyond.
Main airlines: Ryanair and Wizz Air, which both base aircraft here, alongside airBaltic, plus network carriers such as LOT, Lufthansa, Finnair, KLM, SAS and Turkish Airlines. See VNO’s full route map on AirportRoutes →
✈️ Kaunas International (KUN)
Kaunas International serves Lithuania’s second city, in the centre of the country, and is the engine of the country’s low-cost flying. It was one of Ryanair’s earliest bases in the Baltics, and the Irish carrier still anchors the airport, which also hosts a large aircraft-maintenance operation. For many Lithuanians it is the go-to airport for cheap seats to Western Europe.
KUN serves around 27 regularly-served nonstop destinations, almost all of them point-to-point low-cost routes rather than hub connections. The network leans heavily on the UK and Ireland (London, Dublin, Shannon), Scandinavia (Copenhagen, Stockholm) and the Spanish costas (Alicante, Malaga), with the mix swelling in the summer leisure season.
Main airlines: Ryanair and Wizz Air. See KUN’s full route map on AirportRoutes →
✈️ Palanga International (PLQ)
Palanga International sits on the Baltic coast in the north-west, next to the seaside resort of Palanga and about 30 km from the port city of Klaipeda. It is the gateway to Lithuania’s coast and its summer-holiday belt, and the country’s third and smallest airport with scheduled service. Traffic is busiest in the warmer months when domestic and visiting tourists head for the dunes.
PLQ serves a small set of about six regularly-served destinations, a mix of connecting and leisure routes. They are anchored by airBaltic’s link to its Riga hub, plus low-cost and Scandinavian services to cities such as London, Copenhagen, Oslo, Bergen, Amsterdam and Dublin. For coastal and western Lithuania it is a useful alternative to the longer drive to Vilnius or Kaunas.
Main airlines: airBaltic and Ryanair, alongside SAS and Norwegian on seasonal Scandinavian routes. See PLQ’s full route map on AirportRoutes →
Airport rankings, nonstop-destination counts, served cities, airline lists and US connections are drawn from live AirportRoutes route data (observed AeroAPI flight data, a sample rather than a complete published schedule; we use the regularly-served figure, which filters one-off observations). Airport history and notable facts are cross-checked against the cited references. The maps are Mappr originals.
Primary Data Source:
- AirportRoutes: Major airports and routes, Lithuania – Live route data: per-airport nonstop destinations, served cities, airlines and US connections.
References:
- Lithuanian Airports (Lietuvos oro uostai) – The state operator of Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga airports, with traffic figures and airport news.
- Wikipedia: Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga airports – Airport background, passenger figures and operational history.
- Google Static Maps – Base maps for the per-airport locator images.
🌍 More maps & data for Lithuania
Browse more: All airports by country
