Ryanair plans Baltic expansion as Air Baltic restructures under creditor protection
Ryanair intends to double its seat capacity in the Baltics over five years, framing the move around the troubles of Air Baltic, which entered Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States and is shrinking its fleet.
Ryanair wants to double its Baltic offer to eleven million seats a year within five years, and to increase the number of aircraft based in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania from seven to 16. The Irish carrier put the investment at roughly 1.4 billion euros.
Commercial chief Jason McGuinness linked the plans to Air Baltic's difficulties. The Latvian carrier applied for creditor protection in the United States under Chapter 11 a few days earlier. Ryanair called it a "zombie airline" and said the state had spent more than 550 million euros on it since May 2020.
Air Baltic intends to return 20 surplus aircraft to lessors and renegotiate terms on others as part of the restructuring. It plans to cut its fleet from 54 aircraft to 36 by the end of 2026, dropping an earlier target of growing to 100 Airbus A220s by 2031.
Ryanair attached conditions to its own growth. It said the Baltic governments should abolish aviation taxes and cut airport charges, and argued they should stop putting public money into Air Baltic.
Sources
- aerotelegraph.comRyanair verspottet Air Baltic als «Zombie» - und greift die kriseldne Airline frontal an