Airport, Baltic States – CIS, Legislation, Lithuania, Transport

A government commission has decided that FL Technics, the group's aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) arm, does not meet national security requirements and, therefore, cannot invest in the construction of a new hangar on land leased from the airport.

"I can't comment on this in public, but a number of issues have arisen, because the potential investor has links with certain persons," Government Chancellor Alminas Maciulis, chairman of the commission, told BNS.

FL Technics, whose shareholder ASG is building Moscow's Ramenskoye airport, has won an auction to lease 8,260 square meters of land from Vilnius Airport. It was the only bidder.

Under the law, FL Technics had to turn to the commission to be checked for compliance with national security interests. A condition of the land auction was that the bidder had to be cleared as meeting the criteria.

According to Maciulis, the commission's decision means that FL Technics will not be able to build a new aircraft maintenance hangar, but it will be able to continue operations at its existing hangars. The company has two hangars –- of 13,700 and 3,000 square meters –- at Vilnius Airport

Ziemelis could not be reached by BNS for comment on Monday.

FL Technics also has two hangars at Kaunas Airport.

The authorities in Lithuania's northern city of Siauliai last December did not give the green light for ASG to repair airplanes at the Zokniai airport, which accommodates NATO fighter-jets on the Baltic air-policing mission, after the State Security Department established that Ziemelis, chairman of the board at ASG, cooperated with business people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who are on the list of persons to whom Western sanctions apply.

ASG then said that Zokniai was one of possible expansion options and that it would direct its investments to Indonesia's capital of Jakarta, where FL Technics operates in a 9,000-square-meter hangar.

ASG, which is the sole shareholder of FL Technics, is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.