Estonian Air

[RIX BT]

Estonian Air in tail spin

Jul 08, 2009
By Ashley Brettell
http://www.baltictimes.com/visual/1x1.gif
http://www.baltictimes.com/photos/558/23156.jpg NOSEDIVE: The Estonian national air carrier saw its financial earnings plummet, leading to speculation about whether it can keep its head above water.

TALLINN - The Estonian national air carrier is fighting for survival after announcing that its losses in 2008 had trebled. The financial results for 2008 revealed a loss of 171 million kroons (10.9 million euros), despite sales revenue rising by 6 percent to 1.46 billion kroons. This was over three times worse than the 52 million kroon loss incurred in 2007.

Permalink:Estonian Air in tail spin (http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/23156/)


Estonian Air can’t work with loss for long, but if Estonian Air would disappear then the number of flights from Tallinn would go down by half, Andrus Aljas, the Estonian Air CEO told Postimees, ERR News reports.


“The company can’t work in loss for a long time. If Estonian Air isn’t able to e lucrative then there’s doubt whether this company is needed on the market,” Aljas said.
“If Estonian Air disappears then half of direct routes with Tallinn will disappear. Last year global trends were working against is, this year will be difficult as well, but we get back on our feet as soon as the situation improves,” Aljas said.

Permalink:balticbusinessnews.com - Aljas: Estonian Air can?t work with loss for long (http://www.balticbusinessnews.com/Default2.aspx?ref=topread&ArticleID=98ef5b8e-f65e-4fa3-a923-97c4fb3d53bd)

[Charlie Roy]

Almost no competition and outrageously expensive prices, I wonder where all the revenues end up!

[RIX BT]

In March last year Estonian Air promised to send two planes to pension and order three new instead, which should have started flying in April this year, Õhtuleht reports.


Estonian national carrier’s plane park was supposed to get three CRJ900 type jet airplanes, which have 90 seats. They were supposed to be bought from Canadian company Bombardier, who agreed to make discount on EEK 370 mln bill.
Ilona Eskelinen, the spokesperson of Estonian Air said that two Boeings, bought in the 90s, have been returned to the leasing company. She doesn’t want to predict the time the new planes arrive.
"We come back to it in a few days,” she said.
The company promised to open new routes to Zurich and Dusseldorf, also make more frequent flights to Brussels, Moscow and Paris after the new planes have arrived.
Eskelinen said that the schedule does not depend on new aircrafts.
Estonian Air says it hasn’t lost its market share, despite the fact there are no new planes. In five months regular lines had 0.6 pct less passengers, but in May the company had 1.8 pct more passengers than last year.

[davidjohnson6]

Local press coverage is looking really very negative

bbn.ee - End of an airline: curtains closing on Estonian Air (http://balticbusinessnews.com/article/2015/11/6/end-of-an-airline-curtains-closing-on-estonian-air)

Edit - no idea if this is true, but have recieved reports of something likely to happen about 4 pm on 07 November

[NickBarnes]

It's official Estonian Air to cease operations on the 8th of November

[01475]

"Äripäev writes with reference to Danish portal check-in that Nordic Aviation Group has reached an agreement with Austrian airline InterSky to operate Tallinn-Oslo line between 8 Nov and 6 Dec."

Hmm...

[TBSC]

All flights are canceled with immediate effect. The last one (CPH-TLL) landed a few minutes ago.

[fjencl]

OFFICIAL: European Commission rules Estonian Air aid illegal; company halts flights | News | ERR (http://news.err.ee/v/economy/11516419-2230-4254-9925-b0a1da0b08c8/official-european-commission-rules-estonian-air-aid-illegal)

[virginblue]

The Estonian government has already set up a successor, Nordic Aviation. First flight tomorrow, 8 routes, bookable via Adria Airways. Aircraft sourced from bmi, Nextjet, Trade Air and Carpatair.

[01475]

Wasn't Estonian Air effectively leasing its planes from the Estonian Government? Or was that something that changed during the Embraer / CRJ debacle?

[Intrance]

The new arrangement with this Nordic Aviation Group is basically Estonian Air 2.0 and it's throwing good money after bad. Estonian had not been making money in the last 10 years, only kept upright by these capital injections. And instead of letting the market do it's thing, the same stuff just continues under another name with the government dumping €40 million into the same routes that were not making money...


I understand the importance of staying connected, but if the demand is there, the supply will come.

[01475]

I see the greater strategic importance to the Estonian business community. Until such time as there is a Rail Baltica that makes Riga a viable airport for Tallinn, Tallinn needs daily / double daily flights to some key hubs (such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam). Attempting to reorganise my flights (The NAG flights don't seem to have any through ticketing arrangements yet) reaffirmed just how much this is so.

Perhaps they should just be honest about it and organise business friendly PSO flights to these destinations.

[davidjohnson6]

I notice that SAS are launching multiple flights per day to each of Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm effective tomorrow. Air Baltic already fly some routes from Tallinn to major EU connection hubs and are launching more in March 2016. Flew Orebro-Copenhagen this week (one of the routes NAG took over from Estonian - really don't understand why Estonian taxpayers were subsidising me given the plane never touched Estonian soil) - load factor was 14 %

Anyone think NAG will last more than a year instead of being smothered into an early death by competitors rapidly adding seat supply to the market ?