During January luncheon Bertolt Flick, President and CEO of airBaltic spoke to full house of AmCham members.

Bertolt Flick discussed the history and strategy of airBaltic, including its establishment, and being part of SAS Group up until 2009. “In 2003 as we entered SAS group, we started individual routes and introduced point-to-point traffic. We were not profitable at the time,” Mr. Flick said. 

He added: “Things were really changing in 2007 and 2008, and we changed our business model again. Now we introduced connecting traffic, which requires entirely different sales organization. We rebranded airBaltic and started co-branding with hotels.” Mr. Flick emphasized that people generally don’t want to pay much for flight, at the same time they are willing to pay for other services when visiting another country including hotels, taxi and insurance. 

He stressed that one of the most crucial issues for the airline is building of the new terminal at Riga Airport since the capacity has reached its limits. 

“We have had an extremely successful last year and we look to 2010 with optimism”, Mr. Flick concluded.