flydubai has announced a significant expansion of its European network, which will see it adding nonstop services between Dubai International (DXB) and Basel-EuroAirport (BSL), Riga (RIX), Tallinn (TLL) and Vilnius (VNO).
The new services will see the airline become the first Emirati carrier to operate direct flights to these cities and flydubai’s first foray into the Baltic countries.
The Basel service will launch on August 2, 2024, and operate four times per week, whereas services to Riga start on October 11, 2024. Services to Vilnius and Tallinn will begin the following day. All Baltic capitals will be serviced thrice weekly.
As of February 2024, Riga and Vilnius have a nonstop link to Dubai operated by airBaltic with an Airbus A220 aircraft, while neither Basel nor Tallinn offer any direct connection to Dubai or the Gulf region.
With these network additions, flydubai brings the number of destinations it serves in Europe to 43.
While operating separately, both flydubai and the other large Dubai-based carrier Emirates share the same ownership and somehow operate coordinately in the choice of destinations. flydubai often flies to smaller, more niche destinations with narrowbody aircraft, while Emirates covers high demand routes with much larger aircraft.