Estonia, Latvia, Transport

Vanags stated that Estonian Air is clearly in a bad financial situation, even after the Estonian Government has concluded a contract with SAS in order to buy back the national carrier’s shares – the Estonian Airline has not paid enough attention to servicing important destination countries.

“For years, Estonian Air has failed to pay attention to its principal tourism markets,” said Vanags. “You get three to four million tourists each year – this is a huge number,” he explained in the interview to the newspaper.

According to him, the Scandinavian market is not sufficiently serviced and there are very few flights to major cities in the region. “Estonian Air opens flights to Amsterdam via Vilnius, but forgets its principal markets that would bring an income for the entire economy,” specified Vanags.

He asserted that the owners cannot delay selling Estonian Air for long – airBaltic is already offering direct flights from Tallinn to Lappeenranta, Oulu and Turku in Finland as well as to Stockholm, Riga and Vilnius. “At one point it would be questionable whether the shares of Estonian Air would be worth anything to us – we would be able to operate direct flights to Tallinn by ourselves and you would be pushed into a corner,” he noted.

Minister of economic affairs and communications Juhan Parts stated that he is sceptical about airBaltic’s desire to buy Estonian Air. He referred to a recent case where the management board of airBaltic recently decided to sell the company’s brand to managing director Bertolt Flick’s company. “This is a sign of danger and questions emerge about the business culture and other aspects as well,” he added.

Parts did not, however, rule out the possibility that Estonian State’s majority shares in Estonian Air would be sold in future. “We are always prepared to look for strategic partners,” he noted.