airBaltic in talks to purchase thirty new Airbus A220 aircraft

Latvian carrier airBaltic is in discussions with Airbus and is considering ordering thirty new A220 aircraft by exercising existing contractual options, according to statements by the company’s CEO, Martin Gauss, as cited by Reuters.

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airBaltic would order thirty additional Airbus A220 aircraft

According to information provided by the news agency, the airline will expand its current outstanding orders. Gauss stated that the company is also exploring the addition of twenty additional purchase options.

However, the order will not be finalized during the upcoming Paris Air Show. According to Gauss, the timing will depend solely on the progress of preparations for the company’s planned initial public offering, scheduled for late 2024. As part of its provisional business plan, airBaltic aims to operate up to one hundred aircraft by the end of this decade.

On the other hand, the Riga-based company is also interested in the possibility of converting some of the existing orders to A220-500 aircraft, the larger version of the family, should its development progress. The new variant would pose direct competition against the iconic A320, but this overlap would be part of a broader plan by the European manufacturer to definitively conquer the market for single-aisle commercial aircraft.

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See also: The Airbus A220-500 is Coming: A320 Replacement, Boeing 737 MAX Rival

Longstanding partners

In December 2016, airBaltic became the launch customer for the A220-300. Since then, the aircraft originally developed by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier as the CS300 has become the sole model in their fleet.

Currently, the airline has forty operational aircraft and is one of the key operators of the type, offering a network of over seventy destinations across Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East.

See also: airBaltic receives its 40th Airbus A220