Traveling With Air Baltic

May 23, 2023 VERY LITTLE GOING ON, so I’ll birthed with you some information concerning my holiday trips with airBaltic. A young firm that obtained its beginning 1995, Air Baltic does not have the acknowledgment aspect of the essential European airline companies. It’s possibly a larger business than you would certainly anticipate, with a 40-strong fleet of Airbus A220s and also a network touching every significant city in Europe. New paths prolong completely to Dubai and also Armenia. Its primary center remains in Riga, Latvia, with smaller sized centers out of Tampere, Finland, and also the Estonian funding of Tallinn. We flew as much as Tallinn, after that to Riga a couple of days later on.

airBaltic adheres to a would-be inexpensive provider (LCC) version, with a la carte rates and also a structured onboard item. There’s a little, unfussy organization course in advance with free warm dishes. Cheap airfare is no-frills, yet with enough legroom and also a sensible choice of buy-on-board food and also beverage. Comparable to jetBlue in the United States, airBaltic is even more of a crossbreed than a real LCC. Service-wise they’re organizations in advance of European spending plan titans Ryanair as well as EasyJet. (They additionally obtain jetBlue’s uncommon branding affectation, making use of the lowercase “a” as well as the camel-cap “B.”)

I had not been starving, so I can not guarantee the top quality of that buy-on-board food, however the individual alongside me purchased a delicious looking cover. He additionally obtained irritatingly friendly after 2 large containers of Latvian beer.

The seats in airBaltic’s A220s include an uncommon style in which the folding table rotates from all-time low of the seat framework. If you’ve obtained food or a laptop computer on your tray, this stays clear of any type of pinching or squashing when the individual before you reclines.

There’s no enjoyment system or seat-back displays, however a lot of airBaltic’s trips are under 3 hrs long.

The airline company’s site is easy to use and also simple.

The flight terminals in Riga and also Tallinn are portable and also silent. Both have Priority Pass lounges that, shock of shocks, were happily uncrowded. My only complaint was the third-degree experience at the safety checkpoints. The lines were short, yet it still took half a hr to survive since the guards pored via our bags, inspecting every last container of fluid, regardless of just how little.

Total quality: B

Many people could not care much less which airline company they fly with. Numerous can not bear in mind which provider took them to their last holiday. I think it’s various for airline company nerds, with our strange concepts of posterity. It constantly thrills me flying on an airline company for the very first time, as well as this was no exemption. A brand-new one for my checklist.

IMAGES BY THE AUTHOR

For photos from Estonia and also Latvia, check out the writer’s Instagram feed.