Last year, the state airline Nordica was issued an air operator’s certificate and a license to operate and had now been issued an international airline code – “ND”. Going forward, the airline can fly under its trademark and code and has developed a commercial platform.
Nordica has previously flown under the flight code of the Polish airline company LOT. The company’s subsidiary Xfly (formerly Regional Jet) uses its own code – “EE”.
Nordica board chair Erki Urva said Nordica’s charter flights would be completed under the new “ND” code and once the company began operating direct flights from Tallinn Airport, they would also do so under the new code.
“We will begin flying in Sweden under the new code from the start of August, that is when our cooperation with Polish LOT ends,” Urva said.
The coronavirus pandemic gave the air carrier a significant blow. Last year, 22,000 people used Nordica to fly, that number was 351,000 a year prior. The company’s number of flights dropped from 7,600 to 1,100 during the coronavirus pandemic and the number of destinations went down from 20 to 3.
Nordica’s turnover went from EUR 104.4 million to EUR 61 million and losses amounted for EUR 10.5 million, up from EUR 3.6 million a year prior.
Last year, the company also began discussing a commercial platform, which Urva said was currently under development.
Nordica has long planned on conducting flights from Tallinn again, but is not prepared to do so yet due to the uncertain conditions of international air travel.
“We are planning all the time, everything depends on the situation and restrictions,” Urva noted.
This week, Nordica’s long-lasting court procedure with the former employees of Estonian Air was terminated, as the airline reached an agreement with flight crew company Nordic Crew Management.
“Our main problem before the coronavirus crisis was a lack of pilots,” Urva said, adding that the agreement would clear up old issues and it also gave the Estonian carrier an opportunity to hire more people once flight volumes increased.
Nordica initially set aside EUR 1.6 million to compensate the employees involved in legal proceedings, but Urva said the agreement between the company and Nordic Crew Management was confidential, therefore he could not publish the exact sum of the agreement. (ERR/Business World Magazine)
