airBaltic, the Latvian airline based in Riga says it carried 18% more people during the first ten months of this year than it did during the same period last year. The carrier took 3 553 386 people for a ride across its growing network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, CIS and the Middle East.
October was another busy month, a total of 384 493 passengers travelled with the airline, that is 21% more than last year. Martin Gauss, Chief Executive Officer of airBaltic: “Even though market conditions in the aviation industry have changed due rising fuel prices and US dollar exchange rate, we were able to continue our sustainable growth path. Airbus A220-300 fuel savings have reached 22%, providing excellent operational efficiency.”
“So far this year a total of six Airbus A220-300 aircraft have joined our fleet, adding the additional capacity we now see reflected in the growing traffic and revenue figures. By the end of 2019, we plan to have already 22 Airbus A220-300 aircraft on our fleet,” Martin Gauss added. The airline's load factor was a steady 77% during the first ten months of the year, however, in October it was down to 75%
The airline attracted some negative publicity when Gauss inferred that 17,410,74 British people were too thick to understand what leaving the European Union meant when they voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.
The 15-minute flight punctuality indicator for airBaltic during the first ten months of 2018 reached a level of 87%. This means that more than 87 out of every 100 airBaltic flights departed at the planned time or with a delay of no more than 15 minutes. In October, punctuality indicator reached 93%.
