Latvia, Tourism, Transport, USA

The U.S. Baltia Air Lines, headed by Latvia-born Igors Dmitrovsks, is planning to start operating flights on the Riga-New York route, writes LETA.

At the end of the last year, Baltia Air Lines received permission from the U.S. Department of Transportation for performing transatlantic flights from St. Petersburg in Russia to the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Currently the airline is taking the final steps to receive the necessary certificates from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is the final stage in the process before launching the flights.

According to Biznes&Baltija, already since its foundation in 1989, Baltia Air Lines has been headed by the U.S. citizen Dmitrovskis, who was born and grew up in Latvia, but emigrated to the United States in 1976 at the age of 22.

The airline has a "Boeing 747", the aircraft can be used for carrying passengers or cargo.

Baltia Air Lines plans to open the New York – St. Petersburg route in June. One flight will last eight hours.

Already at the end of summer, the airline plans to start flying from New York also to Riga, Moscow, Kiev and Minsk. "Everything will depend on the passenger flow. We could start by offering two flights to Riga per week," Dmitrovskis admits.

Currently the only airline offering direct flights from Latvia to the United States is Uzbekistan Airways, which offers flights on the Tashkent-Riga-New York route.