The Friday before last the Latvian national corporation, AirBaltic, marked its successive anniversary on the Ukrainian aviation market. Just like last year, the organizers prepared a pleasant surprise, raffling off a paid trip, Weekend in Riga, for two, which included a free flight to Latvia’s capital, a stay at a five-star hotel, the Radisson SAS Daugava, and a chance to see Riga’s landmarks. In a word, they offered a services package which, to quote Latvia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine Andris Viltsans, “not only ensures convenience and reliability of business contacts between the Baltic states and Ukraine, but also offers Ukrainians an opportunity to become acquainted with Latvian culture.”
The Day always gets the nod of readers onboard a British AVRO RJ70 or Dutch FOKKER 50, which comply with all international certification requirements. Incidentally, The Day’s journalists, winners of the previous Weekend in Riga lottery, were surprised to learn from a Ukrainian representative of the Latvian company, Valery Prykhodko, about the prospects for future expansion of AirBaltic in Ukraine. In part, they have plans to increase the number of sales agents (over fifty of them are currently working here, despite the fact that the first central office of AirBaltic opened in Kyiv only in May last year) and commission a bigger plane to carry more passengers between Kyiv and Riga. Such plans came as a surprise to the journalists, since the people’s trust in air travel has been undermined by the September 11 events in the USA and the crash of an American A-300 plane, all of which has become a down draft for the aviation sector dealing a lethal blow to many aviation companies the world over.
The secret of high spirits of AirBaltic representatives, which clearly do not fit with the current problems on the air travel market, was revealed to The Day by Dmytro Zelenis, general international sales manager of the company:
“So far no specific dates have been set for the implementation of the plans to put into operation a bigger plane. Anyway, the airline has purchased a new 52-seat FOKKER 50 which will serve the Riga-Kyiv flight. Under changing economic circumstances we may consider changing the type of plane serving the route. Currently there is a discernible trend towards an increase in the number of passengers carried on the flight. In the first eight months of this year the number of passengers was up 15% on last year. Many flights are fully booked. It’s possible that a new plane will be put into operation as soon as spring next year. It should be mentioned that some 85% of the current passenger flow is due to business contacts between Latvia and Ukraine.
“We aim to promote the tourist business. Sales of travel packages have increased five-fold since last year. Purposeful work in this direction, like setting special affordable prices and simplifying the procedure of obtaining visas, and its results could cause a change of the type of plane. Moreover, AirBaltic is a regional airline offering transit flights via Copenhagen and Stockholm to the countries of Western and Northern Europe.
“With all of these circumstances taken into account and against the backdrop of strengthening business ties between Ukraine and Latvia, the Kyiv direction is not only stable, but also promising. Presently, we are also working actively to inaugurate new direct flights from Riga to West European countries.”
