Estonia Air

[one dot right]

Anybody know anything about this outfit, good or bad.
A friend of mine is travelling with them next week so I'd appreciate some feedback.
Thanks

ODR.

[Notso Fantastic]

Well, they're from Estonia, they fly aircraft in Estonia Air colours, and they speak in Estonionese and English (for ATC). They breed like Estonianers, and they fly out of their capital......er.....Finland.
What more do you expect?

[Billings]

Hi,

Well, they're from Estonia
Well done, that's correct! ;)

they fly aircraft in Estonia Air colours
That's 2 for 2, Notso. Looking good....

and they speak in Estonionese and English (for ATC). They breed like Estonianers, and they fly out of their capital......er.....Finland.
Oh well, so near and yet so far. :}

They speak Estonian and English, they breed like Estonians(And they do enjoy that, trust me!) And they fly out of their capital, Tallinn. Finland is a whole different COUNTRY whose capital is Helsinki.

Anyway, one dot, to answer your question. I've only flown with them a couple of times, both pretty short flights on the hop from Helsinki to Tallinn, about 15mins on an MD80. They seem to codeshare with Finnair, so if you are connecting from Helsinki, there's a good chance you could be on a Finnair plane.

Found them lovely to fly with, just as competent as any other aircrew I've had the privilige to fly with and they aren't skimpy with the drinks, even on a 15min flight! ;)

Hope this clears it up for you.

Cheers! :ok:

[WHBM]

One dot:

They've come a long way from being the Aeroflot department in Tallinn. All the old Russian stuff has gone now and it has 737-500s (I think they have 5 now) in a very nice, quite different blue livery, linking to the main cities of Europe. Maersk Air from Denmark had a significant share of ownership, and transferred the 737s, but this share has now passed to SAS.

Tallinn (assuming that is where your friend is going) is a fascinating historic old city, much more interesting than Scandinavia-bland Helsinki across the straits.

For the airline: http://www.estonian-air.ee/index.php?PHPSESSID=aafc076c1ddc146fd77bf27eb97c5372&keel=eng

For Tallinn airport: www.tallinn-airport.ee/index.php?intro_eng=true

Pictures of the cabin service: http://www.airlinemeals.net/indexMeals.html

[one dot right]

Thanks for the replies chaps(all apart from notso anyway,reliably pedantic at the best of times) I shall pass on the good news.

ODR.

[WHBM]

pretty short flights on the hop from Helsinki to Tallinn, about 15mins on an MD80. They seem to codeshare with Finnair, so if you are connecting from Helsinki, there's a good chance you could be on a Finnair plane.
Billings:

Estonian Air do not actually fly to Helsinki, nor have they operated MD-80s; they don't seem to codeshare any more either (I guess they gave it up). The two operators on this short hop are Finnair and Estonia-based Aero Airlines, both of whom use ATR72s (there is also a Helicopter operator and lots of ferries and hydrofoils etc). You can almost see one city from the other. And if Aero look just like Finnair, they are - they are owned by them and use ATRs transferred from the main Finnair fleet, and it seems to just be a way to use cheaper Estonian crews, I fear. They are even "subchartered" by Finnair to do some internal Finnish runs.

[Billings]

WHBM,

Thinking about it, I think you are right. It was last year and they were very early flights. :zzz:

It was two hops, each way. Dublin-Helsinki-Tallinn. The way over it was an Aero ATR from Helisnki.

I clearly remember the way back as we used the same plane for both hops(Finnair MD80). Should have left me in my seat and let me sleep. :O

From what I remember, the flights to and from Tallinn were codeshares with Estoninan with the Tallinn-Helsinki sector as an Estoninan # first, then the Finnair #.

Cheers for the clarification. :ok:

[WHBM]

Billings:

The Helsinki - Tallinn flights are indeed codeshares, but between Finnair and Aero (what a silly thing to do, codesharing with your own subsidiary !). And as the Aero flight code is EE I can understand that it might be thought to be a codeshare with Estonian (whose code is OV).

You do get MD-80s on this short route occasionally as substitutes for the ATRs; Finnair and Aero schedule all of their ATRs fully every weekday so that fleet has no slack, and substituting the Tallinn run will be the least wasteful of fuel. Did you even get up to 10,000 feet ?

Oh dear, looks like I'll be getting the "reliably pedantic" tag as well. Anorak off ! :)