Air Lituanica and Estonian Air have ended their codeshare agreed in June following allegations of unpaid debts from both sides. The agreement was supposed to run until 2015.
Air Lituanica is a start-up airline that launched in June thanks to the codeshare partnership with Estonian Air. The latter also provided an Embraer E170 and sales support to Lituanica.
“Air Lituanica has repeatedly and on an ongoing basis failed to meet its payment obligations toward Estonian Air as set forth in our agreements,” Estonian Air CEO Jan Palmer said in a statement. “Estonian Air has been forced to terminate the contracts due to these breaches by Air Lituanica—breaches that have not been cured in spite of continuous talks and settlement proposals by Estonian Air.”
Air Lituanica CEO Erikas Zubrus maintains that it is Estonian Air that is in breach of contract and owes them LTL5.7 million ($2.2 million) for passengers that have already flown and deposits paid.
Estonian will continue to operate the Vilnius-Amsterdam route until Dec. 13 and Vilnius-Berlin until Jan. 6. “We have no intentions [of serving] these routes independently in the long term,” Palmer said.
Air Lituanica will continue to operate services to Berlin, Brussels, Munich and Prague and is aiming to relaunch Vilnius-Amsterdam service independently.