Transport

It is impossible to imagine life without aviation. The activity of aircraft companies does not only influence economy through the tax system but also affects the quality of life. In the countries where aircraft business, services and sports are developed, other branches of industry also experience the benefit created by aviation. This is transportation of passengers, cargoes, consignments, travelling and tourism business (hotels, catering and entertainment enterprises, travel agencies, car rent, publications, etc.).

 

At the present time Lithuania is one of the few Eastern European states, which does not have its national air carrier. The former national airline company Lietuvos avialinijos (Lithuanian Airlines), which in 1991 successfully entered the international regular flight market and was the first in the Soviet Union to start using the western aircraft Boeing 737, has gone bankrupt because of unsuccessful privatisation. However, invaluable aviation experience and professional participants in the aviation market have survived. Some of them are looking for new jobs, others create them, and others are leaving the country to work abroad.

 

Thus far Lithuanian airline companies that are trying to operate regular flights, has encountered various difficulties, which most probably reflect the state’s insufficient attention paid to aviation. However, there is also some benefit – it is clear that without aviation the country becomes a real godforsaken hole. Lithuania has remained the only country among the Baltic States that is totally dependent on the flight organisers of other countries. The last attempt to create the national air carrier – Star1 Airlines ended in bankruptcy. At the end of 2010, the following Lithuanian airline companies had air carrier licences: the private airline company Klaipėdos avialinijos, the private company Aurela, the private company Aviavilsa, the private company DOT LT“ the private airline company Transaviabaltika, the private company Avion Express, the private company Small Planet Airlines, and the private company Charter Jets. In 2010, the Lithuanian association of aircraft companies Lietuvos aviacija was established.

 

Four international airports operate in Lithuania – in Vilnius, Kaunas, Palanga and Šiauliai, as well as 30 airports in the majority of which pilot schools and clubs operate. In 2009, a total of 731 aircraft were registered in the Lithuanian Civil Aircraft Register. There are more than two thousand individuals who have pilot licenses in the country.

International airports, like all airports of the world, suffered severe consequences of the economic crisis; however, during three quarters of this year almost 1,75 million passengers were served. As compared with the same time in 2009, flows of passengers have increased by as much as 23.4 per cent in the airports.

The number of passengers has increased most considerably in Kaunas International Airport –as much as 1,7 times more passengers have been served since the beginning of this year there. The flow of passengers increased in May after the base of the Company Ryanair had been opened in Kaunas.

The number of cargoes in Lithuanian airports, as compared with the same time last year, has increased by as much as 34.2 per cent. The greatest number of cargoes has been carried in Vilnius airport.

On 21 September 2010, a new cargo carrying line connected Kaunas and Shanghai airports. This is the first cargo-carrying route of such a size in the region; it will replace the link of delivering Chinese transit cargoes intended for European markets. The international importation logistics company Hoptrans Logistic is the handling operator and implementer of the contract. The cargoes that arrive by air to Kaunas airport are distributed and within 24-28 hours are carried by ground transport to the recipients in Eastern and Central Europe. Every time the aircraft of an impressive size IL-96 brings up to 80 tons of cargoes from Shanghai. The new lines will increase the flow of transit cargoes being carried through Kaunas airport even more significantly. During 8 months of 2010, a total of 2710 tons of mail and cargoes were serviced in Kaunas airport, which is 28 per cent more than during the entire year of 2009 (2119 tons).

 

Lithuania’s aviation industry is not large. The largest player is the aircraft designing and manufacturing company, manufacturer of gliders, producer of gliders Sportinė aviacija ir Ko, which started its activity forty years ago. The company manufactures new LAK-17B winglets, standard class LAK-19, open class glider LAK-20 (length of the wings is 23 or 26 m, can be with the reversible engine).

The private company Sportinė aviacija ir Ko, together with Luka Žnidaršič, the Company’s representative in Slovenia, designed LAK-17B with an electric reversible engine whose capacity is 23 kW. There are only two such gliders in the world.

 The Company plans to design glider LAK-17B with an electric rise engine, which will be installed in gliders. It is also planned to manufacture glider LAK-17B with 15 meter-long wings – at the present time it is being designed. Glider LAK-17B with 18-meter-long wings is constantly improved – not a long time ago a new keel and ends of the wings were designed. There is a severe competition among specialists in aerodynamics. Aerodynamics Professor Eduardas Lasauskas who has a 40-year experience works for Sportinė aviacija ir Ko.

 According to the Director of the Company Vytautas Mačiulis, at the present time the main product of the Company is glider LAK-17B, whose initial price is EUR 59 000 – this is as much as 25 per cent less than a new western glider of the corresponding class. Whereas the price of the motorised version of glider LAK-20 totals EUR 145 thousand. The Company announces that it is ready to manufacture helicopters and propellers for Rotax engines too. 

 

Lithuania is the only country in the world where one has the right to become a licensed pilot at the age of nine and to manage an aircraft designed specially for children – a glider that has no analogous all over the world. It is only in Lithuania that such terms as “children’s aviation” and “a training aircraft” have been approved by law. One-seat gliders LAK-16 of Lithuanian construction are used for training.

There is a children’s aviation airport in Lithuania, the only one of this type in the world – Vilainiai airport in Kėdainiai covering an area of 5,6 hectares.

 

The largest place for training amateur pilots in Lithuania is Pilotų mokykla (Pilot School) in Vilnius. This is the first private pilot training school in the Baltic States with a flying base in Paluknis airport. During a year several hundreds of different certificates are issued there. According to the international requirements, the Pilot School is an official flight training organisation. Students learn according to the module teaching programmes. For example, one module is initial training of an amateur pilot, another module is that of a commercial aviation pilot, and so on. It takes one and a half years to train a pilot of commercial aviation. The school uses the following planes: C-150, C-152, C-172, C-206, PA -28, PA -30, PA -34, PA -38, PA -46 Malibu, An-2, Cessna Mustang, Beechcraft Premier I. During a year the Pilot School can train up to 100 pilots. The school has founded a general aviation technical maintenance organisation Elsa technics, which services and repairs planes. This Company has been issued PART 145 license confirming the technical maintenance organisation.

Pilots of airline transport companies are trained at the Pilot School for 6 years. The first to arrive to be trained there were pilots from Latvia. At the present time the flow from Latvia is still steady, however, there are also students from Ukraine, Finland, Norway, and Germany. Those who want to enrol can register in virtual space, and then attend part of the lessons in classrooms and part of them at home having connected to the teaching material by specially provided codes. 

At the present time there are about 20 institutions in Lithuania, which can train pilots of different levels and for different aircraft.

 

One can start the career of a pilot after finishing the secondary school and having chosen studies at one of the largest universities of Lithuania –Vilnius Gediminas Technical University where 16 thousand students attend 10 faculties. One of the faculties is Antanas Gustaitis’ Aviation Institute that has been in existence since 1993. Specialists of four levels are trained at the Institute: bachelors, certificated engineers, Masters and doctors. There are three Departments at the Institute: the Department of Aviation Technologies, Aviation Mechanics and the Department of Avionics. Practical skills of commanders and pilots of the future flights are developed at the base of flight management practice and the base of flight practice. In 2001, the Aviation Specialists’ Qualification Improvement Centre was founded at the Institute. The Centre runs necessary theoretical and practical courses for acquiring or improving qualifications. “The demand for aviation specialists in Lithuania changes, however, the average demand remains. After the crisis the demand for specialists may suddenly increase. Everything depends on the economic situation”, says the Director of the Aviation Institute Jonas Stankūnas.

Fourteen planes available at Antanas Gustaitis’ Aviation Institute (single-engined Cessna 152/172 and twin-engined Cessna and Piper) are used to teach students to fly. Three new single-engined training planes Cessna 172 SP and twin-engined Piper “Seneca“ PA-34-220T have already been purchased using assistance from the European Regional Development Fund allocated for 2008-2013.

Future pilots will be able not only to acquire but also improve piloting skills in a new simulator Ascent Flight Trainer B200 made by the Canadian Company Mechtronix Systems Inc, which enables the process of training pilots to be improved and made cheaper. The simulator is provided with the extended system of visualisation imitating flights in more than 15 European airports, including Vilnius and Kyviškės airports (Lithuania). In the immediate future two training helicopters to be purchased with assistance of the European Regional Development Fund will will be added to the training aircraft park. The aircraft base is equipped in Kyviškės airport, three runways for taking off and landing are equipped for practical classes of pilots in the air.

Lithuania is the most advanced of the Baltic States in training pilots for commercial aviation. In 2009, two educational institutions, two academies – the Baltic Flight Academy (BFA) and the Baltic Aviation Academy (BAA) started functioning. Their services are directed not only towards the domestic market but also towards the foreign market, including that of the East, where the need for requalification of pilots increases and the demands of the market are great. The growth is related to the renewal of the aviation parks of the companies and moving to aircraft of a Western type. Both the Baltic Flight Academy and the Baltic Aviation Academy offer a quick service to the aviation market – to train professional pilots within two or two and a half years.

If in a western educational institution the price of a two-year pilot training course ranges from 55 and 100 thousand euros, the Lithuanian company offers the possibility to become a pilot for a much more attractive price and even intends to help its students to find an employer.

The private company Pilotų treniruočių centras (Pilot Training Centre) that was founded in 2005 in Paluknis airport where students of the Baltic Flight Academy are taught use as many as two real flight simulators of the highest level – DG level Boeing 737-500 and D level Boeing 737-800NG.

“Since its independence Lithuania has offered no possibilities to acquire all qualifications and abilities necessary to the pilot of an aircraft in one place, in a complex way until being employed. This is an entirely new perspective for the youth to acquire a prestigious speciality of a pilot without going to study abroad”, said the Director General of the Baltic Flight Academy Vaclovas Razgaitis.

The training centre Sabenavita runs pilot-type qualification training courses on management of the crew resources, flight attendants, emergency rescue works, aviation security, and transportation of dangerous cargoes. Instructors of Sabenavita are professional pilots who have wide experience of flying Boeing 737-200, Boeing 737-300-900, B-757/767, Airbus 320, SAAB-340, SAAB-2000, ATR-42/72. All of them have completed training and practical work in Germany, England and the USA. The progressive training centre offers primary and repeated training of different types of qualification, the most popular of which are Boeing 737-200, Boeing 737-300-900, B-757/767, ATR-42/72. The Sabenavita training centre offers a real fire fighting and smoke trainer for practical classes and the simulator FNPT II MCC that is the only one in the Baltic States. Training of all types can be conducted in the Lithuanian, Russian and English languages. 

 

One of the largest groups of aviation business enterprises is Avia Solutions Group (ASG). Seven enterprises belonging to this group provide complex solutions of aviation services on a world scale offering services of aircraft park management, pilot training and teaching, crew formation and rent, carrying out charter flights, technical maintenance of aircraft, repair and supply of parts and aircraft components, etc.

The Baltic Aviation Academy is located on an area of 1,329.49 square metres in the centre of Vilnius not far from the airport. Modern lecture rooms for teaching theory are equipped in an integrated teaching complex, the full flight simulator Boeing 737-300/-400/-500 and the real fire fighting and smoke trainer operate. Besides Boeing 737-300/-400/-500 simulator, the Baltic Aviation Academy has real flight simulators in Great Britain, Spain, France, the USA, Sweden, Germany and Russia.

In 2010, the Company presented the initial pilot training programme and introduced seven courses on training new aircraft types; today it offers programmes of theory and practice for the following types of aircraft: Boeing 737 CL, Boeing 737 NG, Boeing 757, Boeing 767, Boeing 777, Saab 2000, Saab 340, Airbus A320, ATR-42/72, Embraer 145, Bombardier CRJ 100/200 and Bombardier CRJ 700/900. This year, the Baltic Aviation Academy, which belongs to the group of the Lithuanian aviation companies Avia Solutions Group”, has become the most rapidly growing pilot training centre in Eastern Europe. The Academy has been certificated at the civil aviation supervision institutions of the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tadzhikistan and Sudan.

“Experience of more than 15 years allows us to take pride in our relations with Eastern and Western countries. One of the major advantages of the Company is a really high quality of teaching. We receive official messages of thanks from airline companies for well-developed teaching programmes. Recently we calculated that one Lithuanian instructor teaching at the Baltic Aviation Academy has spent more than 23 000 hours in the air. We have 83 certified instructors; instructors from Lithuania, Latvia, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Great Britain and other countries teach our students. Our customers joke saying that we are perfectionists – we seek to prove that services in Eastern Europe can be not only cheaper but also of the highest level”, commented the Director General of the Baltic Aviation Academy Eglė Vaitkevičiūtė.

Since 1997, the private company Helisota, the only company of repair and technical maintenance of helicopters of type Mi-8, Mi-17 and their modifications in the Baltic States has operated in Lithuania. The Company has been a leader on an international scale too. Helisota co-operates with the state institutions and private companies in more than 25 world countries. The Company employs almost 200 workers, part thereof has worked for the Company since the beginning of its establishment. The Company devotes much attention to training young aviation specialists, career possibilities are created for them.

The Company carries out major repairs of helicopters, technical maintenance, and modernisation works, aviation parts are supplied, technical maintenance and services of helicopters in the bases of the customers are provided. The private company Helisota is the only teaching organisation in the Baltic States that has the right to conduct theoretical and practical teaching on helicopters of Mil Mi-17 type.

Since 2007 Helisota has had the right to exercise technical supervision of the most popular helicopter Robinson R-44 in the world that is best in its class, as well as to issue certificates of suitability for use. This is a great step towards western technology services. 

The goal of the private company Helisota, as a dynamic company, is improving the services being provided, satisfying the customers’ needs and searching for new spheres of activity.

In conclusion we can say with confidence that asmall country Lithuania has what to be proud of and what to be happy about – it manufactures unique gliders, repairs helicopters, and trains professional pilots.