Airport, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Transport

Aljas estimated that these destinations should be accessible from Estonia twice a day either with direct flights or with one stop-over where the waiting period would not exceed 1.5 hours.

“In order to guarantee better flight connections, the requirements are on one hand the acquisition of smaller and more economic aircrafts and on the other hand increasing the attractiveness of Estonia as a destination location,” he said.

Currently, Estonian Air flies to nearly 20 direct flight destinations. At the same time, the CEO of the airline noted that adding new destinations and the overall financial state of the enterprise are not directly linked.

“An airline can operate flights to only ten destinations and manage the enterprise very profitably while also fly to 50 destinations and earning a major loss,” he noted. Aljas stated that it is important to have suitable types of aircraft for the demand in order to be successful on the Estonian market.

According to the CEO, Estonian Air is moderately optimistic about the developments this year. The passengers numbers in the first few months of the year indicate that the decline is stabilising, which is a positive sign. “Estonian Air’s results indicated a remarkable improvement in March already – which is traditionally a bad month in the aviation sector,” commented Aljas, but added that regrettably the unexpected air traffic problems in April adjusted the numbers downward.

In terms of new destinations, Estonian Air is planning to launch the Tallinn-Athens route on July 5. Work is also ongoing in preparing for launching other new destinations.