Martin Gauss, Chief Executive Officer of airBaltic said: “We are very pleased with this strong cooperation. By expanding our partner network, we are offering more convenient travel options to our passengers. Already this summer season we are enabling passengers to choose from more than 300 destinations with one stop by using airBaltic partner airlines.”
Annelie Nässéen, Executive Vice President Sales & Marketing at SAS said there was "great benefit in
this code-share partnership agreement on a number of routes, providing better connections to and
from Scandinavia with reciprocal frequent flyer benefits for our travelers.”
airBaltic will put its code, BT, on flights connecting Riga and Alesund, Bergen, Stavanger, Tromso, and
Trondheim via Oslo and Copenhagen airports.
SAS will place its flight code, SK, on direct flights from Stockholm Arlanda, Copenhagen and Oslo airports and vice versa, as well as connecting traffic from SAS’s whole network and Riga via its three hubs.
airBaltic was founded in 1995, with SAS holding a 29% share in the company which had increased to 47% by 2008 at which point it sold its stake as part of a management buyout. However, three years later the Latvian state had to step in to stabilize the airline and has held a majority stake in the company ever since.
In the subsequent years airBaltic's fortunes have turned around and it has returned to profit and greatly extended its destination list to become the leading airline in the Baltic states by a comfortable margin.
