airBaltic will lease two A319s and one A320 aircraft to support flight operations, as the airline continues to battle engine maintenance delays.
The Latvian carrier will lease the three aircraft from Romanian airline Carpatair, with these planes set to operate approximately 6% of airBaltic’s flights.
The deployment of leased aircraft is in response to continued issues with Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan (GTF) engines, which has grounded a number of its A220-300 aircraft.
The airline said on January 2, 2025, that it had cancelled 4,670 flights from its summer 2025 schedule, citing "unexpected delays" and "prolonged engine maintenance" by Pratt & Whitney.
Speaking to Airline Economics at Growth Frontiers Dublin two weeks after this announcement, airBaltic CEO Martin Gauss said the airline had approximately 18 aircraft on ground (AOG) at the time of the interview. He anticipated this number would drop to around 10–12 during the summer peak, an improvement compared to the 2024 summer period.
The airline also partly attributed a net loss of €118.2 million in 2024 to the accelerated depreciation on its GTF engines, which amounted to €73 million.
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