3 countries, roughly 7 million inhabitants, and 3 “domestic” airlines. Is this a case to say “In the end there can be only one?”
Estonian Air has recently had its share of problems with canceled flights, destinations and laying off staff. Air Baltic has seen support from SAS fade, and has now been forced to buy out the remaining shares that belonged to SAS. And flyLAL is in serious trouble at home, as the Vilnius airport threatens to stop providing services to the domestic airline for failiure to pay the due fees since August 2008.
Is 2009 the year where Air Baltic will finally dominate the Baltic airlines? I for one do not welcome our new “low-cost” overlords, and wish that Estonian-Air has some fighting power. In the end my heart is with Estonian air, but my mind says that 3 airlines for such a small market is too much, and someone has to give.
Some recent articles on the airlines:
TBT Dec 24
AirBaltic buys out remaining SAS owned shares
RIGA- Management of airBaltic has decided to buy out the remaning shares of the company held by SAS.SAS currently holds 47.2 percent while the Latvian government holds 52 percent.
"Even in this difficult economic climate, the management believes in the company’s future and has decided to buy the shares which currently belong to SAS AB,“ said Bertolt Flick, president of airBaltic.
Once the deal is completed on Jan 31 2009, airBaltic will be completely owned by the state of Latvia. AirBaltic will however continue to work together with SAS on commercial flights as before.
AirBaltic’s fleet is made up of 28 aircraft including ten Boeing 737.
TBC Dec 23
After the state of Lithuania decided not to purchase a 51-% holding of flyLAL – Lithuanian airlines for 1 litas, the airline company announced about the reduction of flights.TBC Dec 29As of January 6 2009, planes will not fly to Istanbul and the number of weekly flights to Frankfurt will be reduced. flyLAL will perform flights to this city on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, informs ELTA.
As of January 7, the company cancels flights to Paris. Starting with January 8, clients will be able to fly to Milan only on Saturdays. The company cancels flights to Rome from January 12. The company stated that the winter flights schedule was corrected due to the decreased flows of passengers.
flyLAL CEO Vytautas Kaikaris said that the company respected the decision of the ministry and understood that it was not easy to adopt it.
As of January 1, 2009, Vilnius Airport is planning to discontinue offering its services to the Lithuanian airline flyLAL, according to the airport’s press secretary.The press secretary pointed out for ELTA that the airport has fulfilled all of its obligations towards the airline, and that the airline has not paid its fees for using the airport’s services since August.
The airline has also been collecting airport taxes from passengers and not handing these taxes back to the airport.
flyLAL owes Vilnius Airport more than LTL 20 million (LVL 4.08 million).
If the airline continues to not carry out it obligations, the airport will discontinue offering its services to flyLAL from January 1.
As reported, Latvian Transport Minister Ainars Slesers (Latvia’s First Party/Latvia’s Way) predicted that the Lithuanian airline will go bankrupt sometime this winter.