Estonian Air CEO: Better Times Could Mean Bigger Planes
If its business takes off, Estonia's flagship air carrier could return to using larger aircraft in its fleet, according to its CEO Tero Taskila.
"We have calculated in our financial plan, that if things go well, we have the opportunity to go back to using 120- to 140-seat planes. But this won't happen next year, maybe in 2013 or 2014," Taskila said in an Eesti Päevaleht interview published November 17.
The airline, which earlier this month secured a 30-million-euro investment from the state, is planning to retire its relatively larger Boeing 737s - the 120- and 140-seaters Taskila referred to - and add an additional five Canadian-produced Bombadier aircraft over the coming two years.
Taskila said that switching to the 88-seat Bombadier aircraft currently makes economic sense.
"As you see, we are now flying half-empty Boeings, and for an airline it's always better to make two flights that are full of passengers rather than one that's half empty," he said.
Taskila stressed, however, that the planned purchase of the five new Bombardiers wasn't set in stone.
"I reserve the right to say that if they offer us the same or worse conditions than before, we won't buy the Bombadiers," said Taskila, adding that Estonian Air is now in a much better negotiating position than it was last September when it closed the deal to buy its first three CRJ900 NextGen aircraft from Bombardier Aerospace.
A key part of the airline's stated growth strategy involves increasing the frequency of flights to nearby markets. On November 17 Estonian Air announced that it was relaunching its service to Riga and Helsinki as well as upping the traffic on its routes to Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Vilnius.
Steve Roman