newstodate.aero
Aug 26, 2009 (newstodate): The issue of delivery to Estonian Air of three new CRJ900 NextGen to replace most of its current fleet of six Boeing 737 aircraft is still up in the air.
-The aircraft for Estonian Air are comprised by the order by the SAS Group after the negotiations with Bombardier over a settlement of the issue of the grounded SAS Q400 fleet in late 2007, and according to the preliminary plan, the idea was to deliver new aircraft one by one in rotation: the first one at the end of May 2009, the second in the middle and third one by the end of June, says Ilona Eskelinen, Estonian Air PR Director.
-We are, however still negotiating some details in the deal, primarily concerning the financing of the aircraft. No new delivery date has yet been fixed, but we are also not much worried as we can serve our route network with the existing fleet without any problems.
-The market conditions have changed profoundly since the initial agreement was signed, so we need to re-negotiate accordingly to obtain the right conditions.
-So far into 2009 we have launched flights on new routes from Tallinn to Berlin, Amsterdam, St Petersburg and a new route from Tartu to Stockholm, so we are really doing fine with the existing fleet.
-We did charter the Swedish carrier Transwede for the period August 6 to September 3 to operate an Avro RJ85 on our behalf on routes from Tallinn to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Kiev, Hamburg and Berlin, but this is to cover up for a planned C-check on one of our Boeing 737 aircraft, says Ms Eskelinen.
-The aircraft for Estonian Air are comprised by the order by the SAS Group after the negotiations with Bombardier over a settlement of the issue of the grounded SAS Q400 fleet in late 2007, and according to the preliminary plan, the idea was to deliver new aircraft one by one in rotation: the first one at the end of May 2009, the second in the middle and third one by the end of June, says Ilona Eskelinen, Estonian Air PR Director.
-We are, however still negotiating some details in the deal, primarily concerning the financing of the aircraft. No new delivery date has yet been fixed, but we are also not much worried as we can serve our route network with the existing fleet without any problems.
-The market conditions have changed profoundly since the initial agreement was signed, so we need to re-negotiate accordingly to obtain the right conditions.
-So far into 2009 we have launched flights on new routes from Tallinn to Berlin, Amsterdam, St Petersburg and a new route from Tartu to Stockholm, so we are really doing fine with the existing fleet.
-We did charter the Swedish carrier Transwede for the period August 6 to September 3 to operate an Avro RJ85 on our behalf on routes from Tallinn to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Kiev, Hamburg and Berlin, but this is to cover up for a planned C-check on one of our Boeing 737 aircraft, says Ms Eskelinen.