| Nativename: | Kauno Oro uostas |
| Hub: | Ryanair |
| Elevation-M: | 256 |
| Coordinates: | 54.9639°N 24.0847°W |
| Pushpin Map: | Lithuania |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Lithuania |
| Pushpin Label: | KUN |
| R1-Length-F: | 10,663 |
| R1-Surface: | Asphalt |
| Metric-Rwy: | yes |
| Kaunas Airport | |
| Image2-Width: | 250 |
| Iata: | KUN |
| Icao: | EYKA |
| Type: | Public |
| Opened: | 1988 |
| Owner: | Ministry of Transport and Communications |
| Website: | kaunas-airport.lt |
| Operator: | SE "Lithuanian Airports" |
| City-Served: | Kaunas, Lithuania |
| Location: | Karmėlava |
| Elevation-F: | 840 |
| R1-Number: | 08/26 |
| R1-Length-M: | 3,250 |
| Stat-Year: | 2019 |
| Stat1-Header: | Passengers total |
| Stat1-Data: | 1,160,591 |
| Stat2-Header: | Passenger change 18–19 |
| Stat2-Data: | 14.8% |
| Stat3-Header: | Aircraft movements total |
| Stat3-Data: | 9,888 |
| Footnotes: | Sources: Kaunas Airport[1] and AZ world airports[2] |
| Stat4-Data: | 4.6% |
| Stat4-Header: | Movements change 18–19 |
| Stat5-Data: | 3,196 |
| Stat5-Header: | Cargo (tonnes) total |
| Stat6-Data: | 37.2% |
| Stat6-Header: | Cargo change 18–19 |
Kaunas Airport (Lithuanian: Kauno tarptautinis oro uostas) is the second-busiest civil airport in Lithuania after Vilnius Airport and the fourth-busiest in the Baltic states. The airport is located in the central part of the country, 14km (09miles) northeast of the Kaunas city centre and 100 km west from the capital Vilnius.
Kaunas Airport started operations in 1988 when airport activities were moved from the historic S. Darius and S. Girėnas Airport, located in the central part of Kaunas city. In 1991, after Lithuania restored its independence, the airport gained the status of an international airport and in 1996 it became a member of Airports Council International and began to take part in the activities of the "Lithuanian Airports" association.
Kaunas Airport was used by YAK-40, and YAK-42 of the local Aeroflot branch since 1988. The flight range was moderate and there were some scheduled flights from Kaunas to Kyiv, Kharkiv, Moscow, Odessa, Simferopol, and Šiauliai. Regional airline Air Lithuania based in Kaunas operated scheduled and charter flights from Kaunas to Budapest, Billund, Hamburg, Malmö, and Oslo from 1993 until 2004.
Ryanair started operating flights to Kaunas in 2004. In 2006 it announced establishment of its base in Kaunas. At the beginning of 2013, Ryanair invested more than 3 million euros in a new aircraft maintenance and repair hangar in Kaunas, which currently employs 220 people (2018 data). The airline is further expanding its aircraft maintenance activity at Kaunas Airport, with a planned further investment of 1.6 million euros, which will allow the servicing of twice as many aircraft. The company intends to employ 40 additional aviation mechanics, and the employment strategy is based on the company's collaboration with the Kaunas School of Mechanics at Kaunas University of Technology in order to prepare necessary specialists and invite students for traineeships.
Air Baltic operated Riga - Kaunas daily flights in 2006-2008 and 2009–2014, sometimes reaching up to two daily flights.
Wizzair operated a Kaunas - Warsaw - London Luton route for a short period of time in 2005. The airline returned to Kaunas in 2012.
Two temporary terminals were in operation in 2017, when Vilnius Airport was closed for reconstruction and flights transferred to Kaunas.[3] [4]
LOT Polish Airlines started operating six weekly flights to Kaunas International from Warsaw Chopin Airport on 21 May 2018.[5]
The airport is owned and operated by the State-owned enterprise Kauno Aerouostas, and is fully governable to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. In May 2013, the Government announced about the plans to merge Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga airports into one company and the plans were approved by the Lithuanian parliament in November 2013. The merger took place in 2014.
Ryanair is the main passenger carrier at the airport, and has gradually expanded its network there since 2005 when the airline first landed at the airport. In 2010, Kaunas Airport became the first airline's base in Eastern Europe and this resulted a more-than-doubled-route network expansion at the airport. The airport reported 77% growth in passenger traffic that year and also won the EURO ANNIES 2011 prize awarded by a weekly aviation e-journal anna.aero as being the fastest-growing airport in Europe in the category of under one million passengers.
Almost a quarter of all passenger flow at the airport are travellers from the neighbouring countries Latvia, Belarus and Poland.[6]
In 2008 the new three-storey terminal building was opened for passenger operations. The 7573m2 building can handle 800,000 passengers per year and the maximum capacity has been already reached in 2010, three years after the opening. The simple linear terminal design allows further expansions both ways.
The ground level is designated arrival area and fully complies with Schengen regulations. There are all essential facilities for arriving passengers, including bureau de change and car rental offices. The upper two levels are for departing passengers only. All 12 check-in desks are located on the first floor, where the passengers flow is separated to Schengen and non-Schengen departure zones through the security areas located on the first and second floors. The airport is not equipped with air bridges which suits the preference of airport's biggest client Ryanair of boarding and disembarking with steps.
The terminal facilities also include airline ticket offices, tourism agents, several shops, bars and cafes throughout the airport.
The runway of Kaunas Airport is 3,250m long and 45m wide, and is categorized with a 4E ICAO reference code. This enables to handle aircraft with up to 45m wing span and 14m main gear wheel span, which includes planes the size of a Boeing 747 or Antonov An-124. The runway is oriented along the dominant direction of western winds; it is also equipped with CAT II ILS equipment, which allows it to receive aircraft with close-to-minimum-visibility meteorological conditions.
Theoretical runway average capacity, when aircraft are landing or taking off, is 12 operations per hour.[7] A new taxiway to improve the runway system was built in 2009. Further taxiway improvement works started in June 2013, expanding the southern part of the airport to construct a new 190m-long and 23.2m-broad runway by the end of 2014.[8]
Ryanair operates its own maintenance hangar at Kaunas Airport, which launched operations in January 2013. It can accommodate one aircraft at a time and performs C-type maintenance checks. The same year Ryanair has set to double its MRO capabilities at the airport and began construction of the second hangar in Kaunas.
FL Technics has announced its plans to invest almost 4 million US dollars into high-tech aircraft maintenance equipment at its newly launched MRO hangar in Kaunas. The latest equipment will support FL Technics MRO centre in servicing both narrow and wide body modern aircraft, including Boeing 747 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Following the full implementation, of the investment strategy, the new FL Technics base in Kaunas will create almost 300 new jobs, including over 200 places for aircraft mechanics, engineers and other aviation technical personnel.[9]
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Kaunas Airport: