Estonian state-owned company Transpordi Varahaldus owns seven 88-seat Bombardier CRJ900NG passenger planes. The best bid to purchase the aircraft has now been identified.

Estonian Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Svet (SDE) told ERR that the prospective buyer is an international company, which is active in the aviation sector. However, the company's name will not be disclosed until a letter of intent is signed.

"Our general timetable is as follows: in the first half of March, we plan to sign a letter of intent with the company that has offered the best price for the aircraft. This company will then send its specialists to Estonia or hire specialists from here to inspect these aircraft on its behalf and assess their condition," said Svet.

The minister explained that the sale of each aircraft is accompanied by a large amount of technical inspections and other details. Most crucial are the engine documents, as these are the most expensive and important parts of the aircraft. The prospective buyer will therefore start by checking that the condition of the aircraft is consistent with the accompanying documents.

"On the basis of this review, the company may or may not wish, if the aircraft meet their expectations, to negotiate the price with us further. Once those negotiations have taken place, we will hopefully be able to sign a sale and purchase agreement by May at the latest," Svet said.

The price the company has offered for the planes, Svet said, also cannot be revealed before May. Understandably the state wants to sell the planes for as much as possible and the buyer wants to buy them for as little as possible. Revealing these figures now could have an adverse effect on those negotiations.

"As far as the price is concerned, I can say that we are cautiously optimistic, but at the end of the day, it all depends on how the audit goes and whether we are able to implement everything that we have currently planned out according to our timetable," the minister added.

Svet confirmed that the prospective buyer would like to purchase all seven Transpordi Varahaldus aircraft.

Svet had previously said several multinational companies made bids for the purchase of the planes, and that those bids were for the entire fleet, as well as for partial purchases and partial leases. The state's priority is to sell the entire fleet in one go.

Nordica, which first began operating in 2015, flew from Tallinn under its own name until the fall of 2019.

At the end of 2023, the state began the process to privatize Nordica. However, when an interested investor backed out of the plan last November, Nordica's board decided to wind up the airline and filed for bankruptcy. Nordica was declared bankrupt on January 28 this year by Harju County Court.

The aircraft owned by Transpordi Varahaldus had been leased to Nordica on a long-term basis, and Nordica, in turn, subleased them to its subsidiary Regional Jet, which operated under the Xfly brand. Regional Jet had provided internal domestic flights in Sweden.

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