Flying With Air Baltic
May 23, 2023
NOT MUCH GOING ON, so I’ll bore with you some details about my vacation flights with airBaltic.
A young company that got its start 1995, Air Baltic lacks the recognition factor of the mainstay European airlines. But it’s maybe a bigger company than you’d expect, with a 40-strong fleet of Airbus A220s and a network touching every major city in Europe. New routes extend all the way to Dubai and Armenia. Its main hub is in Riga, Latvia, with smaller hubs out of Tampere, Finland, and the Estonian capital of Tallinn. We flew up to Tallinn, then down to Riga a few days later.
airBaltic follows a quasi low-cost carrier (LCC) model, with a la carte pricing and a streamlined onboard product. There’s a small, unfussy business class up front with complimentary hot meals. Economy class is no-frills, but with ample legroom and a reasonable selection of buy-on-board food and drink. Similar to jetBlue in the United States, airBaltic is more of a hybrid than a true LCC. Service-wise they’re leagues ahead of European budget giants Ryanair and easyJet. (They also borrow jetBlue’s and easyJet’s unusual branding affectation, using a lowercase “a” and the camel-cap “B.”)
I wasn’t hungry, so I can’t vouch for the quality of that buy-on-board food, but the guy next to me ordered a tasty looking wrap. He also got annoyingly chatty after two very large cans of Latvian beer.
The seats in airBaltic’s A220s feature an unusual design in which the tray table pivots from the bottom of the seat structure. If you’ve got food or a laptop on your tray, this avoids any pinching or crushing when the person in front of you reclines.
There’s no entertainment system or seat-back screens, but most of airBaltic’s flights are under three hours long.
The airline’s website is straightforward and user-friendly.
The airports in Riga and Tallinn are quiet and compact. Both have Priority Pass lounges that, surprise of surprises, were pleasantly uncrowded. My only gripe was the third-degree experience at the security checkpoints. The lines were short, yet it still took half an hour to get through because the guards pored through our bags, scrutinizing every last container of liquid, no matter how small.
Overall grade: B
Most people couldn’t care less which airline they fly with. Many can’t remember which carrier took them to their last vacation. I guess it’s different for airline geeks, with our weird notions of posterity. It always excites me flying on an airline for the first time, and this was no exception. A new one for my list.
PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
For pictures from Estonia and Latvia, visit the author’s Instagram feed.
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9 Responses to “Flying With Air Baltic”
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“this avoids any pinching or crushing when the person in front of you reclines”
Whoa, then it Has got something on EasyJet (man, that’s how I write it).
I’m quite attached to EasyJet at this point. Seems like a good outfit.
Got the Third Degree (yes, a tiny tube of toothpaste) at Nantes the other day. I told the lady “Applicable legislation deters me from say what’s on my mind about that tube of toothpaste.” She probably thought to herself “Good thing!”
Erm… easyJet, not EasyJet, is another example of “unusual branding affectation”, as you call it, with a small “e” and then a capital “J”.
Back in the day when I had to leave Schengen to renew my 90 day visa, I flew airBaltic from Warsaw to Kiev via Riga. I had very similar experience to what you describe, except I don’t recall hassles at security. I once had a very long layover in Riga (8 hours plus), but that gave me the chance to leave the airport, walk around Riga, and have a nice lunch. Here’s the point: airBaltic made it very easy to do that with a shuttle that took you to the old town and there were a lot of busses (every 30 minutes?), so rushing back to catch a flight wasn’t a problem.
I flew a Delta A220 for the first time in April from Cincinnati to Boston, and thought it was a wonderful plane – quite a lovely upgrade from the RJ.
Funny timing. I just flew an AirBaltic flight (LX codeshare) CDG-ZRH in business. The food was really nice (fresh ricotta salad) for a 1.5 hour flight and the plane seemed new. No seatback screens, of course, but there were tiny screens hanging from the overhead bins which showed the flight map. I wouldn’t hesitate to fly them again.
What fraction is their own flying and what fraction for Swiss?
Thanks a lot for this review, Patrick! I’ll have my first short flight with airBaltic in three weeks (from Zurich to Nuremberg) and I’m also quite excited to add another airline to my list!
I have never flown on Air Baltic, but I’ve been to the Tallinn airport. Do they still have the bright, festive colors on the seats? In 2014 when I was there each gate had its own pattern; the seats at my gate had a rainbow striped motif. It was a fun change from the usual boring grey or blue airport seats.
What I remember is that each gate has a different corporate sponsor, and is done up in the colors and designs of that company.
I flew on what I think was either a wet-leased or codeshare Air Baltic flight earlier this year from Zurich to Manchester (the original Manchester, not the fake one in New Hampshire) as part of a Singapore-Zurich-Manchester flight. On the same trip, I did a proper short-haul Swiss flight, from Rome to Zurich on an A320, and a couple of longer runs on Swiss 777s.
The Swiss short-haul flight was OK, but the plane was a bit old and shabby.
I thought the Baltic flight was lovely. It was an A220 as well – the first one I’d flown on – and I really liked the cabin design. It felt really open and airy, and (possibly because I was still unravelling after 12 hours on the 777 from Singapore), there seemed to be absolutely loads of legroom and hip room. The staff were friendly and helpful. And my kids can vouch for the quality of the wraps: they said they were excellent.
It was the nicest short-haul flights I’ve been on in ages: I really was pleasantly surprised.
And yes, both the plane and the airline are new ones to add to my list too.