airBaltic eyes expansion, places new order becoming largest Airbus A220 customer in Europe

airBaltic will become the largest A220 customer in Europe after confirming an incremental order for an additional 30 A220-300s. This new order will take the airline’s total firm orderbook to 80 aircraft. Already operating a 44 strong fleet of A220-300s, airBaltic is currently the largest A220-300 operator in the world. The airline’ history with the Airbus A220-300 dates back to 2016 where it was the launch customer, and in 2020, it refreshed its fleet to solely operate this aircraft type. Thus far, the airline has carried more than 13 441 000 passengers on the Airbus A220-300 aircraft. The airBaltic A220-300s have completed over 150 000 flights and flown 328 000 block hours.

Martin Gauss, President and CEO of airBaltic commented: “This day marks a significant milestone in the history of airBaltic – our plans for the first time ever to operate a fleet of 100 aircraft by 2030. For almost seven years already, the Airbus A220-300 has been the backbone of our operations and has played an integral role in the international success story of airBaltic. Being the global launch customer of the Airbus A220-300, we continue to be a proud ambassador of it. We are grateful to our partners at Airbus for the incredible support, trust, and collaboration over these years.”

Christian Scherer, Airbus Chief Commercial Officer and Head of International, said: "Thank you to airBaltic for being such an ambassador for the A220 with this repeat order. The A220 has been the instrument for airBaltic in its success and growth thus far and we are particularly proud to be extending this partnership well into the future with this latest order. The A220 offers a unique capability in terms of range, performance, and not to forget, passenger appeal. It is a gamechanger for our customers in this important market segment, which we are serving with less fuel-burn, lower emissions and noise, making the A220 a global citizen of choice.”

The Airbus A220-300 has performed beyond the company’ expectations, delivering better overall performance, fuel efficiency, and convenience for both passengers and the staff. This aircraft offers an excellent flying experience with such benefits for passengers as wider seats, larger windows, more hand luggage space in the cabin, improved lavatories, and much more.

In addition, the aircraft is also considerably quieter – with a twice smaller noise footprint when compared to the previous generation aircraft. Moreover, at the moment, it is the most efficient commercial aircraft in the world with a transparent declaration of the life-cycle environmental impact, helping to reduce CO2 and NOX emissions by 25% and 50% respectively in comparison the previous generation aircraft and industry standards.