This will bring the total number of destinations from Lithuania to 50, Dara Brady, director of marketing, digital and communications for Ryanair, told a press conference on Tuesday.

The new direct destinations are Aalborg, Brussels, Budapest, Helsinki, Gothenburg, Madrid, Stockholm, Warsaw, Birmingham, Eindhoven and Gdansk.

Moreover, Ryanair is set to expand its aircraft maintenance base at Lithuania's Kaunas Airport and invest 15 million euros.

Ryanair's new hangar will double its capacity in Kaunas and will create 200 new jobs for highly skilled aviation engineering, mechanical and administrative professionals, the company said on Tuesday.

"We are extending our operations here in terms of maintenance facilities which will see us creating 200 additional jobs over the coming year or two," Dara Brady, director of marketing, digital and communications for Ryanair, told a press conference.

"Clearly, we've had ongoing commercial decisions over the last while that have led us to this announcement today – investing over 15 million in our development of our maintenance facilities is huge for the economy, huge for employment here in Lithuania," he said.

According to Lietuvos Oro Uostai (Lithuanian Airports, LOU), FRC LT, Ryanair's Lithuanian subsidiary, is planning to build a two-part aircraft maintenance hangar after winning a 40-year lease of a plot of land adjacent to the airport's apron.

Construction on the hangar is planned to start in late 2022 and be completed within a year.

The company currently employs 270 people in Lithuania, most of them in Kaunas.

Marius Zelenius, head of communications at LOU, says that Lithuania has the ambition to further develop its aircraft maintenance infrastructure.

"We have the ambition. We already are the largest aircraft maintenance center in the Baltic states and I think we have a huge potential for growth," he told reporters.

Demand for aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services is huge, as the number of air travelers is expected to double in the next ten to 15 years, according to Zelenius.

Elijus Civilis, general manager at Invest Lithuania, the government's foreign investment promotion agency, described Ryanair's decision to expand its base in Lithuania as "a good indication", saying that the country has proved that it is not on the periphery of the aviation industry.

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