Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Tourism, Transport

Estonian Air’s PR director Ilona Eskelinen estimated that direct damages amount to 10 million kroons. According to her, this amount includes damages from cancelling regular flights and chartered flights, the costs related to care of passengers provided during the interruptions in the flight plans and the earnings not collected due to a significant decline in the number of passengers.

Erik Sakkov, a member of the management board of the Tallinn Airport, remarked that due to the eruption of volcanic ashes in the ambient air, the enterprise failed to collect 4.7 million kroons in earnings.

President of the Estonian Association of Tourism Enterprises Sven Lõokene stated that Estonian tour operators probably suffered the biggest damages – they were forced to organise Estonian citizens’ return trips from different resorts. This caused havoc with the regular cycle of flights and caused a number of empty flights in the schedule.

Andree Uustal, the managing director of Novatours, the biggest tour operator in Estonia, noted that the damages caused to the company by the volcanic ashes amounted to nearly 2 million kroons.

Lõokene said that travel agencies also suffered from certain damages – in two weeks, they were unable to sell any flights, but worked a lot on re-plannign flights.

Mari-Liis Rüütsalu, the press spokesperson of Estravel, the biggest travel agency in Estonia, estimated that the cancelled flights caused the enterprise 9 million kroons in damages. “How we will re-claim this amount of money will be a problem we will have to deal with,” she added.