Airport, Estonia, Legislation, Lithuania, Transport

"The owner of the aircraft has disclosed that the same Jetstream was used by Avies under a lease agreement until January 15," Jaan Leivategija, the Saare County secretary who took part in negotiations at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications on Monday, told the regional newspaper Meie Maa.

The Civil Aviation Administration on April 1 suspended the AOC of Avies for six months citing safety concerns. "With Avies the problem was not the aircraft but how the company was managed. Its flight safety and flight control documentation was not in order," Leivategija said.

According to Leivategija, the Civil Aviation Administration checked all the aircraft operated by Avies at the end of last year and detected no shortcomings.

Tickets to the Kuressaare-Tallinn service operated by Transaviabaltika will start to be sold on Thursday and the governor of Saare County is expected to sign the agreement with the carrier on Friday. Under the agreement, a one-way ticket between Tallinn and the capital of Saaremaa Island will cost 26 euros.

Transaviabaltika has said it has filed an application with the Lithuanian Civil Aviation Administration to have Jetstream 3200 as the aircraft type written into its operator's certificate. If it cannot get an AOC for Jetstream by June 20, it will initially serve the route with a LET-L410 aircraft.