Finland-based regional air travel start-up Lygg is leveraging existing privately-owned aircraft assets and their pilots, coupled with car services, to deliver flight routes that take passengers from door-to-door destinations underserved by traditional airlines to cities throughout Europe. Lygg began offering the flight routes to and from Helsinki, Finland; Örebro, Sweden; Linköping, Sweden; and Tallinn, Estonia in January.

The new flight paths milestone comes on the heels of record promotional and charter flights in 2022 to familiarise customers with Lygg's offerings. From June last year, when operations began, Lygg has completed 52 flights to 17 destinations in 12 European countries.

“These new flight routes are a confirmation that the Lygg regional travel model is resonating with the business community,” says CEO and co-founder Roope Kakäläinen. “On the one hand, we are delivering traveller satisfaction with curb-to-aircraft seamless efficiencies that promise savings for companies. On the other hand, we are providing operators of the small aircraft asset class the possibility of seeing future flight hours and consequently predicting their revenues. Happy customers, savings and profitability; that is a winning combination.”

The new city and country destinations offered by Lygg are linked with direct connection flights, planned and optimised through Lygg's smart mobility platform, at the heart of which lies its client and demand-driven business model. The Lygg customer app enables corporate clients with regular transportation requirements to book point-to-point itineraries across Europe.

“We have people moving around every week, so the use of private flights could be very attractive. We also have a lot of visitors to the factory. The nearest airfield is in Kuopio, from where it always takes time to get here, to IIsalmi,” says Tommi Väänänen, who heads supply chain for Ponsse Plc, a manufacturer of large-scale forest machines. Ponsse plans to use Lygg's existing Helsinki-Iisalmi direct connection flights for easier access to the company's remotely-based site.

Since 2020, the Scandinavian start-up's regional air travel platform has been addressing the inefficiencies of the current regional business travel model with its solutions. The aviation industry's shortcomings have been magnified with the return in droves of travellers following the recent pandemic lockdowns. Lygg aims to circumvent those problems by offering customers bespoke regional air travel solutions as an alternative to short haul commercial airline routes, whose flights have either been discontinued due to the pandemic or have merely become feeders to fill long haul carrier aircraft.

The technology powering Lygg's platform enables accurate passenger and cargo volume measurement over time, which allows Lygg to sustainably organise flight frequencies with as few empty seats as possible. The new flights serve Helsinki, Finland - Örebro, Sweden; Helsinki - Lynköping, Sweden; Örebro, Sweden - Tallinn, Estonia; and Helsinki - Tallinn on either daily or weekly rotations.

The Lygg platform also reconciles distance and payload for smart asset allocation, essentially matching the right aircraft and facilities with demand. Aircraft deployed on flight itineraries are optimised to their full capacity or as close to it as possible. Importantly, the platform offers operators of Lygg's digitalised fleet the unprecedented benefit of predictability and guarantee of income for this class of aircraft. Asset optimisation also significantly reduces carbon emissions. For example, a Tampere-Stockholm direct connection flight, as compared to the offer of a traditional airline via a hub, reduces carbon emissions by 43 per cent. Aircraft scheduled to fly to the new destinations currently include one Pilatus PC-12 single engine turbine aircraft; two Piper PA-31 twin engine turbocharged pistons; and two Beechcraft Super King Air 200 twin-engine, turboprops.

The Lygg business travel solution maximises efficiency and trims unnecessary commercial airline-related costs for customers by operating out of smaller, peripheral airports and airfields, or private terminals. Ultimately, time and money lost by sending staff on commercial airlines are recaptured by leveraging under-used assets, including airports and new aircraft categories. The new flights will operate out of the private, user-friendly, service-supported premium business terminals in Helsinki and Tallinn. Local airports will be used in Örebro and Linköping.

“It is a two-sided market that is profitable from day one of operations for all parties benefiting from our offering,” says CRO and co-founder Jari-Jussi Viinikkala. “Lygg's attractive customer experience has conquered passenger reluctance to travel for business and brought value to operators. By reactivating direct routes that had vanished due to the pandemic, and creating new ones, Lygg is breathing economic vitality in the regions we serve.”