Estonia’s Xfly opens Lisbon base, Nordica targets Germany

Estonia’s Nordica in “liquidity crisis”, fate clear by YE23

It will be known next month whether Nordica (ND, Tallinn Lennart Meri) faces either privatisation or bankruptcy, Estonian Minister of Climate Kristen Michal told the local broadcaster ERR, affirming that the state will not put any more money into the carrier to keep it afloat.

He was speaking shortly after a memo from the Climate Ministry, whose portfolio the state-owned flag carrier now falls under, was made public last week saying that insolvency could not be ruled out. This came as the company posted a loss of EUR11.9 million euros (USD12.7 million) for the first nine months of 2023 despite a 29.8% revenue rise.

The memo said that the majority of the loss at Nordic Aviation Group AS, the parent entity for Nordica and its ACMI-focused subsidiary Xfly (Estonia) (EE, Tallinn Lennart Meri), had accumulated in just the last four months, complicating efforts to turn around the company, a process for which aviation advisory firm Knighthood Global was hired this summer to contribute to.

The note pointed to issues in four...

Editorial Comment: Text adjusted to show that Portugália and Marabu were, and no longer are, ACMI customers - 07.12.2023 - 08:05 UTC

Germany's Lübeck Air suspends flight operations

Ryanair loses Alitalia, Brussels Airlines aid challenges

The European Union’s General Court has ruled against separate challenges from Ryanair (FR, Dublin International) that the state aid Alitalia and Brussels Airlines (SN, Brussels National) received in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic was compatible with the bloc’s internal market.

In separate judgements handed down on October 18, the court in Luxembourg dismissed the legal action the Irish carrier brought and ordered it to bear its own costs and pay those incurred by the European Commission.

Alitalia benefited from two individual aid measures amounting to EUR199.45 million euros (USD236 million at the time) in relation to the period March 1 to 15 June 15, 2020, which the European Commission approved that September; and EUR73.02 million (USD90.5 million at the time) covering June 16 to October 31, which the antitrust regulator gave its nod to in late December 2020.

Without opening the formal examination procedure for state aid, the commission considered that the measures in question constituted public aid compatible with the internal market. In two separate appeals, Ryanair asked the...

Estonia's Marabu to wet-lease two A320s from mid-4Q23