Temporary Low Cost Travel Cafe

[Atalanta]

My son is getting married in Palanga, Lithuania, in July 2008. I wish to fly from UK to Palanga, not to another city with a long bus ride. How can I best do this? I can't spend more than a week there.
Atalanta

[attitudetravel]

Lithuania's low cost airline FlyLAL used to operate a small handful of international services direct to Palanga, but you're fresh out of luck because those routes are no longer available for booking.

In the next month or two, FlyLAL may re-introduce low cost routes to Palanga on its website in time for the summer season, but there's no counting on it. In any case the carrier has never flown direct to Palanga from the UK, only from cities on the continental mainland.
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[attitudetravel]

Nevertheless, you still have two options available if you want to fly directly into Palanga:

1) Expensively, you can fly return from London Heathrow to Copenhagen to Palanga on Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). If you book your flight for July now on the SAS website, it will set you back a total of GBP 238 for the complete round trip including taxes.

2) More cheaply - if slightly more fiddly - you can fly one-way from London Stansted to Oslo Rygge to Palanga in July 2008 for as cheaply as GBP 59 (EUR 78) including taxes, on Norway's low cost airline: Norwegian.

See this example:

Tuesday 22nd July:
Depart London Stansted at 11:00
Arrive at Oslo Rygge at 14:00
Total fare including taxes: EUR 53

Tuesday 22nd July:
Depart Oslo Rygge at 16:35
Arrive at Palanga at 19:00
Total fare including taxes: EUR 25

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Norwegian's flight times co-ordinate quite so conveniently on the return journey.

Instead, you might fly from Palanga to Copenhagen on Scandinavian Airlines for a one-way fare of GBP 141 including taxes.

Then you could fly from Copenhagen to London Stansted on easyJet for as little as GBP 22 one-way, including taxes.

See this itinerary:

Tuesday 29th July:
Depart Palanga at 07:00
Arrive at Copenhagen at 07:15
Total fare including taxes: GBP 141

Tuesday 29th July:
Depart Copenhagen at 10:20
Arrive at London Stansted at 11:10
Total fare including taxes: DKK 219 or GBP 22

Unfortunately, while flying low cost from the UK to Palanga on Norwegian is an excellent deal, flying home via Copenhagen - despite the superbly cheap easyJet flight from Copenhagen to London Stansted - still ends up being quite expensive due to the exorbitant one-way fare charged by Scandinavian Airlines from Palanga to Copenhagen.

The total fare for the second itinerary comes to a total of GBP 222 including taxes which is only a saving of GBP 16 compared to the original total round-trip fare of GBP 238, flying to Palanga via Copenhagen on SAS.
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[attitudetravel]

Alternatively...

I know you said:

[attitudetravel]

Given everything we've covered so far, it looks like one of your best options might be to fly on Norwegian from London Stansted, via Oslo Rygge, to Palanga on your outbound journey and then take a bus from Palanga to Kaunas on your penultimate day in Lithuania, stay the night in Kaunas, and fly early the next morning on Ryanair from Kaunas direct to London Stansted on the return journey.

The finished itinerary looks like this:

Outbound Leg
=========

Tuesday 22nd July:
Depart London Stansted at 11:00
Arrive at Oslo Rygge at 14:00
Total fare including taxes: EUR 53

Tuesday 22nd July:
Depart Oslo Rygge at 16:35
Arrive at Palanga at 19:00
Total fare including taxes: EUR 25

(Added together, this comes to a total of EUR 78 or GBP 59)


Homebound Leg
==========

Tuesday 29th July:
Depart Kaunas at 07:00
Arrive at London Stansted at 07:15
Total fare including taxes: GBP 42

Total fare including taxes for the entire return jouney: GBP 59 + GBP 42 = GBP 101

Any good?
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[nothrills]

Alan, I think you confused the times of Ryanair flights back from Kaunas: it's 12:00 and 22:20. So you can still make it on the same day from Palanga.

[attitudetravel]

Ooops.

Yes, you're absolutely right, nothrills - well spotted!

In that case, yes, it would definitely be possible for Atalanta to catch the late flight on Tuesday 29th July - or any other Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday in July - and fly home on the following itinerary:

Homebound Leg
==========

Tuesday 29th July:
Depart Kaunas at 22:20
Arrive at London Stansted at 23:00
Total fare including taxes: GBP 50

Total fare including taxes for the entire return jouney: GBP 59 + GBP 50 = GBP 109
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

[zemgule]

There is new direct route with Flylal (www.flylal.com) London Stansted - Palanga, but a little expensive. 171 GBP return for July.