newstodate.aero
Mar 03, 2010 (newstodate): While expanding at a rapid pace, the Latvian carrier is still not hitting the ceiling of its aircraft fleet capacity.
The airBaltic fleet currently consists of 31 aircraft, including two Boeing 757-200, 10 Boeing 737-500, eight Boeing 737-300 and 11 Fokker-50 aircraft.
-So far the majority of our routes have been point-to-point traffic during daytime with Riga Airport as our hub, which really leads to a relatively low rate of aircraft utilization, says Bertolt Flick, airBaltic President & CEO.
-But as we are now adding more and more longer over-night routes to destinations in e.g. the Middle East and CIS, we have increased our rate of utilization by exploiting time so far unused.
-Also point-to-point traffic is comparatively resource consuming, requiring much effort into obtaining suitable slot times and planning.
-We expect to increase our passenger volumes, both point-to-point and transfer, and the number of flights significantly in 2010 and are now recruiting cockpit and cabin crew.
airBaltic is also preparing to take delivfery of its first of eight new Bombardier Q400 aircraft in April, with the remainder to follow suit before the end of October this year.
While the order was negotiated by the SAS Group when it still owned 47.2 percent of the shares in airBaltic, the aircraft will be fully owned by airBaltic.
The airBaltic fleet currently consists of 31 aircraft, including two Boeing 757-200, 10 Boeing 737-500, eight Boeing 737-300 and 11 Fokker-50 aircraft.
-So far the majority of our routes have been point-to-point traffic during daytime with Riga Airport as our hub, which really leads to a relatively low rate of aircraft utilization, says Bertolt Flick, airBaltic President & CEO.
-But as we are now adding more and more longer over-night routes to destinations in e.g. the Middle East and CIS, we have increased our rate of utilization by exploiting time so far unused.
-Also point-to-point traffic is comparatively resource consuming, requiring much effort into obtaining suitable slot times and planning.
-We expect to increase our passenger volumes, both point-to-point and transfer, and the number of flights significantly in 2010 and are now recruiting cockpit and cabin crew.
airBaltic is also preparing to take delivfery of its first of eight new Bombardier Q400 aircraft in April, with the remainder to follow suit before the end of October this year.
While the order was negotiated by the SAS Group when it still owned 47.2 percent of the shares in airBaltic, the aircraft will be fully owned by airBaltic.