The plucked chicken that is airBaltic tries to pretend it’s an eagle

This summer, many airports around the world have been in chaos due to last-minute flight cancellations. In June, various problems led to the cancellation of a large number of flights in Asia, pilot shortages left LaGuardia and Newark airports (USA) semi-paralyzed, and global air transport problems converged in Europe, where airport chaos spread from London to Amsterdam and Berlin. The number of flights cancelled is estimated in the many thousands. The situation has now improved somewhat, but even now a passenger cannot be sure that his lovely journey will go as planned and that he will not be stranded for hours or even days in a hotel or airport premises.

Riga has a small airport and Latvia has a relatively small national airline, airBaltic, but the global air transport problems are also projected onto Latvia on a correspondingly smaller scale. There are also the occasional last-minute cancellations of flights. There are also planned cancellations. From September, airBaltic will cancel flights to four destinations from Vilnius airport, while flights to Edinburgh, Manchester and Stavanger will be suspended from Riga due to a lack of spare parts for the company's aircraft. From September, airBaltic will no longer fly from Vilnius to Oslo, London Gatwick, Dublin and Hamburg.

There will also be fewer flights from Vilnius to Paris, Berlin, Tallinn and Riga.

Fares have already increased significantly. Martin Gauss, CEO of airBaltic, promised in an interview with Latvian Television in April that fares would not be proactively increased, but would rise in line with inflation. Inflation in Latvia was 16.9% in May, but frequent flyers feel that fares have risen much faster. And they keep rising.

Frequent travelers have experienced, for example, the inconvenience of being bumped down to economy class after buying a ticket in business class. Although a business class ticket is about 60% more expensive than a regular one, no compensation is offered. If the passenger does not want to quarrel on principle, he tolerates it, does not complain, because he knows that the hassle and time spent proving his point may outweigh the benefit of monetary compensation.

airBaltic has leased a substantial part of the modern Airbus A220-300s it bought with Latvian state money to other airlines, while it carries its passengers on old and uncomfortable planes leased from another airline.

In addition, due to a lack of spare parts, some of the planes are on the ground and are not being used for transport, according to pietiek.com.

The remuneration of Martin Gauss, the Chairman of the Board of the Latvian national airline airBaltic, increased by 20.7% to €829,018 last year, according to his annual income declaration for 2021 filed with the State Revenue Service. It is likely that the salaries of a number of the company's top management are not small either. It's good that people are paid big salaries - you shouldn’t count money in someone else's pocket and envy them!

But it would be great if the company's workforce also received large, competitive salaries. Not only consumers' convenience, but also their safety depends on all employees working in harmony. Currently, airBaltic has a number of vacancies. The salary for an Office Administrator (secretary) is €1000, for a Training Coordinator €1200-1400, for a Flight Coordinator €1300-1500, for an Aircraft Wheel Shop Mechanic €1600, for an IT Security Officer €1800-2000, for a Junior Flight Attendant €800-1000. So, Martin Gauss is paid about 35 IT specialist salaries or 70 flight attendant salaries per month.

The comparison may not be exactly fair, as Martin Gauss has been named Tourism Person of the Year 2020, and has been described in the media as a "business personality" at the very top of the charts. However, something does not seem quite right in the Gauss "kingdom" anymore.

If an IT expert can only earn at best €2000 at airBaltic, he will think about looking for a job in a Western country. If an aircraft wheel mechanic is offered €1600, he might be better off working as a parcel carrier or postman somewhere in Ireland, where the minimum wage for such jobs is €2500. If an aircraft wheel mechanic finds a job in the West, his salary will be at least two or three times higher than in Riga. We can only hope that at least the pilots of airBaltic are not being short-changed, because if pilots are not paid enough, they will quickly move to better, higher-paying airlines.

Like everywhere else in the world, airBaltic suffers from two things - fuel prices and staff costs.

It is obvious that there is a crisis in the Latvian passenger air transport sector, and if we continue to subsidize this company, it will never end. In 2020 and 2021, to overcome, mitigate and prevent the crisis caused by Covid, the government supported an increase in the share capital of aviation companies, providing a total of €291.23 million to companies in the sector. Last August, the state decided to pay a €90 million "no-fly" bonus to the airline. In total, the state has invested almost half a billion euros in airBaltic over its lifetime. Most of this money relates to the last five years or so.

There is a huge crisis in the industry, and if we continue to subsidize this company, this subsidization will never end. Perhaps it is better to finally accept the fact that the company is insolvent or bankrupt?

The passenger air transport industry should be consumer-oriented. That would be normal. If the consumer feels that things are bad, that means that things are really bad. It is not a tram or a trolleybus. There is a huge crisis.

Does the national airline see how to survive this crisis? If they do not, then perhaps it is time to stop feeding the event, which is headed by the "business personality" Gauss?

It is touching to see how the PR department of airBaltic tries to act like everything is fine. "airBaltic passenger numbers increased by 300% in May," according to a report inspired by the company's PR specialists. But of course! If you compare May's figures with the deepest pit, the worst Covid lockdown time, that’s how it’s going to look.

airBaltic is like a plucked chicken trying to pass itself off as an eagle. In fairness, many airlines around the world are in a similar chicken situation. Fuel prices and staff shortages, staff shortages and fuel prices are their problems.

One can only think that the Covid-time state investment will hardly be enough and airBaltic will want more “equity increases” or other ways to milk the state. This should give rise to reflections and questions: "Is airBaltic's management acting rationally in the crisis or is it just covering up with PR measures? Is the remuneration of senior management proportionate to the remuneration of the company's rank and file, and is it competitive?" All sorts of other questions might arise if there were someone in parliament and in public administration who asked such questions.