“We are looking all the time at returning to Dublin Airport and Cork Airport is also interesting,” Martin Gauss, Chief Executive, airBaltic, told Irish Travel Trade News on a recent visit to Dublin.
“Dublin was a good route for us, with a large Latvian population in Ireland, but Ryanair was a competitor on the point-to-point service, so it was not as profitable as other routes. However, Ireland is an important market and in the medium to long term it should be connected well,” he added. “Riga – Dublin – the USA is also the best option for transatlantic traffic and talking with Aer Lingus about a codeshare would make sense.
“Cork Airport would also be interesting – but we would probably introduce other, more profitable, routes first.
“From 2016 our growth will no longer be restricted by the EU, legal issues from the past are being resolved, the airline is now in profit, and we have one of the lowest cost bases in Europe.
“Our restructuring started in 2011 and we are now in a position to attract the right private investor. We could also look at flying to Dublin from Talin or Vilnius, but these would be serving smaller communities in Ireland and we would also have to look at competitors on the routes.
“We recently became the first airline in the world to join Bitcoin – and received worldwide publicity. The only risk to us is the daily income in Bitcoin because this is changed into Euro each evening.”
