Air Baltic CEO's open letter: thoughts on vaccines, digital passport and restrictions

"Letter from the President and CEO of airBaltic, Martin Gauss". This was the subject of the email that the president of the Latvian company sent to his loyal "guests," as he likes to call them.

Also posted on the carrier's official website and social channels, Martin Gauss analyze airBaltic's current situation, ranging from the revenue of the last year, the cuts carried out, the health passport, the vaccine for employees and the future Of the airline.

Spending cuts to make up for losses

2020 was a year difficult to digest for companies that have been forced to stop and leave their planes at earth: airBaltic-branded aircraft, as Gauss pointed out, have not flown for well 62 days.

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Hard the consequences: to cut costs, Latvian carrier laid off 700 employees, as well as reducing the fleet by 15, from 40 to 25 aircraft. The company has thus focused on theAirbus A220-300, the most modern in the fleet, and stopped operations on Boeing 737s and the Q400 turboprop.

The liquidity of airBaltic will reduces of 3.5 million a week, a decline that led the company to a period of austerity waiting for better times.

"Over the past 25 years airBaltic has developed as a strong, profitable and internationally respected airline. It is by far Latvia's best known international brand and responsible for more than 2.5% of Latvia's GDP.

Every crisis has an end, and with that in mind we at airBaltic are maintaining our operations and even investing in the future by bringing in more Airbus A220-300s this year.

By the end of 2021 we will have 32 Airbus aircraft and with that we will offer 75 destinations from Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius in the summer months."

The digital passport to get back on the road

As we know in Europe something is being moving, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that by March there will be a proposal for a law to adopt the Health Passport.

In this regard, airBaltic's CEO lets it be known that the company is cooperating with IATA and all major carriers to activate the service as soon as possible. Thanks to the Travel Pass proposed by IATA, In fact, it will be possible to incorporate all the documents required to travel within our smartphone, in order to simplify the procedure of boarding And travel safely.

Mandatory vaccinations for employees?

In a recent interview, CEO Martin Gauss also commented on the proposal, advanced by some industry insiders, on the mandatory vaccination for the employees of the airlines. Many CEOs have expressed a favorable opinion, but Gauss is not entirely convinced.

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The president of airBaltic has, in fact, expressed his perplexity stating, "I think I don't have the right to order it to an employee, I would like to have a situation where I can say that all our crews are vaccinated, but I cannot oblige people to do that."

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Cautious words, then, for Martin Gauss, who concludes his letter with a hearty "I look forward to welcoming you aboard one of our planes."

Hard to know when and how we will return to travel without having to think about masks, vaccines, swabs or health passports. We hope that the sacrifices we are making for now can serve to get us back to fly and accumulate miles With the serenity we deserve.

• Martin Gauss

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