Under a new procedure approved in May, non-scheduled flights to Lithuania will now need to be arranged in advance after several private jets flying to Russia were intercepted at Lithuanian airports earlier this year.
Unscheduled flights arriving in Lithuania now have to provide data about the plane’s operators, charterers, owners, and passengers. The move follows an earlier LRT investigation into sanction evasion, showing that private jets being flown to Russia are using Lithuania as a stopover.
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The new rules will not apply to scheduled passenger flights or planes that need to perform emergency landings.
According to the Lithuanian state-owned airport operator, Lietuvos Oro Uostai, several flights have already been blocked since the new procedure was put in place in May.
In March, a Cessna was blocked from leaving the Palanga airport after it emerged that its final destination was Pskov in Russia. In April, a private helicopter UP-RB008 was prevented from taking off for a flight from Kaunas to Pskov.
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