airBaltic goes green with digitalized passenger lists and CEO gets type rated on Airbus A220

The Latvian state-owned airline, airBaltic has confirmed it has now replaced paper passenger onboarding lists with a digitalized solution, in another step forward to becoming a green airline.  The carrier says the new system provides increased operational efficiency.

From now on, the daily work of the cabin crew becomes almost paperless and this initiative will help save approximately 1.8 tonnes of paper each year. In addition, the airline has eliminated various other paper documentation, mainly used in the ground operations department. Documentation that has been digitalized includes pre-boarding information, trip information as well as fuel figures.

Back in 2014 airBaltic introduced iPads to pilots allowing them to avoid carrying between 10-15 kg of flight manuals and reference material to each flight. Three years later iPads were introduced also for airBaltic cabin crew.

Martin Gauss, CEO of airBaltic: “Sustainability is an integral part of our business and each of us strives to make this world better on a daily basis. Digitalized passenger onboarding lists is the next step forward. Our colleagues have done a significant job and we are happy to see that our cabin crew are excited about this improvement. From now on airBaltic cabin crew will not be using long paper lists anymore, instead, all data will be received on iPads.”

Gauss began his professional career as a Boeing 737 pilot back in 1992 and has maintained his commercial pilot’s licence throughout his career. Now he has successfully completed his Airbus A220 type rating training course. This now enabling him to perform captain’s duties on the aircraft and becomes the first airline CEO in the world to have performed type rating on the Airbus A220. He completed the Airbus A220 type rating training at the carriers training centre in Riga, in October. 

Following the massive down in passengers numbers from the current pandemic, airBaltic retired its Boeing 737 and Bombardier Q400 fleets to only operate the A220. 

The Airbus A220-300 has performed beyond the company’s expectations, delivering better overall performance, fuel efficiency and convenience for both passengers and the staff. This aircraft offers an excellent flying experience with such benefits for passengers as wider seats, larger windows, more hand luggage space in the cabin, improved lavatories and much more.

The new aircraft is also considerably quieter – with a four times smaller noise footprint. Moreover, at the moment it is the greenest commercial aircraft in the world, as it is the first aircraft to have a transparent declaration of the life-cycle environmental impact, helping to reduce CO2 and NOX emissions by 20% and 50% respectively.

Recommended for you...