thumb|Aurela Boeing 757-200 landing at [[Vilnius International Airport|Vilnius Airport (VNO)]]

Aurela was a charter airline based in Vilnius, Lithuania. It operated charter services for several tour operators in the Baltic states. Its main base was Vilnius International Airport.

History

The airline was established and started operations in 1996 as a joint-stock air company using a Tupolev Tu-134A.

In 2012, Aurela began to operate several routes for Monarch Airlines due to Monarch opening new routes and not having sufficient fleet. Routes such as Birmingham to Málaga. Monarch ceased their partnership with Aurela in September 2012, due to extensive delays, customer complaints and an Aurela aircraft skidding off the runway at Birmingham Airport.

On 18 February 2013, the decision was taken by the Lithuanian CAA to suspend the licence of Aurela.

Services

The core activities were:

  • Regular charter Flights – one of the key operational activities by Aurela was travel agencies chartered flights to different resorts in Europe, Asia and Africa.
  • Individual charter Flights – Aurela Airlines organizes individual or so-called exclusive charter flights.
  • ACMI Lease – Aurela provided aircraft with all maintenance and crew including engineers to a lessee. In 2006 Aurela had a successful cooperation with Estonian Air. One of the aircraft was leased to the Estonian company for three and a half months. Airlines such as airBaltic, Small Planet Airlines and Star1 Airlines also hired the service, when necessary.
  • VIP Flights – Aurela was the only aviation company in Lithuania operating a commercial category, VIP class aircraft.

Fleet

thumb|Aurela Boeing 737-300 landing at [[Vilnius International Airport|Vilnius Airport (VNO)]]

Aurela had various aircraft types, including:

  • 1 Hawker 850XP
  • 1 Hawker 900XP
  • 2 Boeing 757-200
  • 1 Tupolev Tu-134
  • 2 Yakovlev Yak-42D
  • 1 British Aerospace BAe 125
  • 2 Boeing 737-300

References

  • at Wayback Machine