The World of Alliances

I have made a guest post in airBaltic blog. Find out:
1. When and why alliances were founded;
2. What benefits they bring to airlines and passengers;
3. What is the hub coverage by each alliance.
http://blog.airbaltic.com/2011/08/11/all-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-alliances/

Long Distance Coaches From Riga

Long distance coaches are rather developed and popular mode of passenger transportation in the Baltic States. Last year I wrote how coaches dominate the public transport market within Baltic States so now it’s time to look what are the possibilities for travel from Riga to destinations beyond borders of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. There also are several long distance coach routes not involving Riga but these are not taken into account here.

Altogether 131 unique cities and towns outside the Baltic States can be identified with direct service from Riga. As the map shows – all routes can be divided in two large groups based on their geography:

1) The closest destinations – Russia (excluding Moscow), Belarus and northern part of Poland. This group includes frequent services to the large cities as Warsaw, St Petersburg and Minsk and far less frequent services to regional destinations like Gomel and Baranavichy in Belarus or Velikiy Novgorod and Smolensk in Russia. Services in this group see competition from car travel and in lesser extent from air travel (limited number of destinations focused on feeding Riga hub) and trains (service being limited to St Petersburg, Minsk and few more stops on the way). Routes in this group have many stops in the Baltic States and further abroad and they are operated by various companies often strongly cooperating and, in some occasions, competing.  

2) Routes to more distant destinations in Ukraine, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Russia (Moscow) and other countries. All of them (except few in Ukraine) are operated by carrier Norma-A under Ecolines brand. These routes face strong competition from airlines (airBaltic and Ryanair) that outperform Ecolines by frequency and seat capacity, and of course – by travel time.

Nevertheless there are reasons why some costumers choose 31-hour bus ride instead of less than 3-hour flight to Düsseldorf. First of all - coaches serve many more cities and towns than air travel can offer. Almost all of West-heading coaches from Riga make a detour to pick more passengers at Vilnius and stop at all mayor towns all the way to Warsaw. In Germany and the Netherlands coaches stop at large number of medium-sized towns. So being closer to the origin and destination of passenger is a cornerstone in this service. This positively effects the overall travel costs as ground transport in Germany is monopolized and expensive.

Secondly, coach travel is generally cheaper than air travel for close departure bookings, yet directly comparison is hard as airlines use fare level system and extensive sales but Eurolines – flat fares. In the example of Düsseldorf, flat Eurolines fare of €110 is undercut by airBaltic for travel 7-8 weeks from today and by Ryanair – within a week from today. As Ryanair has recently restricted online bookings for travels from Latvia and Lithuania for departures within a week due to credit card fraud risk, choosing a coach is an alternative also in urgent cases.

And the last, but not the least reason is luggage allowance. While charging for checked-in luggage is a mayor revenue source for almost all airlines operating from Riga, Eurolines don’t charge for luggage at all and the luggage size regulations are less strict. This is a large travel cost saver for those passengers intending for a longer stay – guest workers and students for example.

Passengers loading luggage for their trip from Riga to Kiev at Riga coach station. Operated by Ukrlines under Ecolines brand. The €50 service is popular despite the more than 16-hour ride and need of Belorussian transit visa.  

Norma-A has publicly admitted that after the opening of German labor market their sales has strongly increased and some capacity will be added. But what are other development opportunities in the market? As top priority for Ecolines I see more complicated fare system that guaranties lower fare than air travel also for more distant departure dates and allows benefit from elements of yield management. If the number of departures is going to increase - the number of destinations per route should be decreased to reduce the travel times (similar to current route to Paris that skip all German destinations). The role of frequency seems to less important in this type of service, though I believe no destination should be served less than twice weekly anyway. If the market grows, different route structure of developed transfer opportunities and high route frequencies may be applied. From one side - long distance coach market is strongly linked to situation in air travel so increased airfares must increase the passenger number for bus travels, but from the other side - many of the potential passengers may choose not to travel at all because of the unacceptable travel time by coach or choose to make the journey by car to benefit from grater flexibility. 

airBaltic Riga Base 2011

Two years ago I took a close look how airBaltic had transformed its Riga base from point-to-point strategy in 2007 to a genuine hub in 2009. Now it’s time to find out how things have evolved since then.

It’s clear that the hub strategy has not changed. Almost all aircraft operations can be divided in 5 groups: group 1 in morning, group 2 in afternoon, group 3 in evening, group 4 late at night, group 5 also at night but with earlier departure and later arrival than group 4.

Anyway there are some details that have changed:

1. Almost all Nordic routes have gathered in group 5. In 2009 Oulu was operated in group 2, Alesund in group 3 while now both of them and also some new destinations are in group 5.
2. Billund - previously group 3 destination - now have altering group 1 and 3 operations.
3. Group 2 – the important daytime operations to mayor European cities – has sprawled. Both backwash and uprush windows are longer due to the new service to Madrid and rearranged timings for some Baltic flights. Berlin and Stockholm daytime operations are no longer in group 2. Instead two flights are made.
4. Second daily flights to Paris and Amsterdam have joined London in group 3.
5. Some clustering has happened in departure times for flights within one geographic region. For example – group 5 flights to Kalinigrad, Palanga, Tartu and Kaunas all depart at 8.20pm.

Overall the hub operation strategy is little bit clearer and still is the lifeline of airBaltic. Unfortunately flights to Visby to be cut this month, yet not really a surprise as they did not fit in any flight group so transfer possibilities were too limited. As for future – the arrival and departure times for group 2 should be kept under control – no more too far destinations like Madrid. It would actually make sense to swap Dublin and Madrid flight times. Long arrival and departure frames make transfer longer if traveling between close cities where majority of the traffic lies. There should not be routes operated only in group 1 or in group 3 – they rather must be operated in some other group or using altering pattern like Billund does. It’s similar to the mixed-up schedule pattern for p2p carriers I proposed earlier. And there should not be new routes from weak destinations operated out of hub pattern. In contrast - there may be strong routes with high frequencies that go out of the hub frame - like many current departures to Helsinki, Vilnius and Tallinn.

Riga to Moscow Fare Watch

Moscow is one the busiest route from Riga airport, the traffic is strongly supported by the large Russian community in Latvia but also reflecting the booming tourism, business and transferring passenger numbers.

Up to summer 2010 Riga to Moscow market was served only by joint 3-daily Air Baltic and Aeroflot product to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport (SVO) but in August last year things got more diverse. UTair started their own daily flight from Vnukovo airport (VKO) using 50-seat CRJ200 and also offering connections to their vast domestic network. In November 2010 another Russian airline Transaero started twice weekly Boing 737-500 flights to Moscov’s Domodedovo (DME) airport followed by Air Baltic’s supplementary two weekly flights on that exact route. On the other hand – RIX-SVO airport pair is still the dominant as are the two flag-carriers – Air Baltic and Aeroflot.

Aeroflot, Transaero and UTair typically charge more for one-way tickets than for corresponding segment on return ticket. For this analysis one-way prices are determined as those available for return tickets though they can’t be booked without buying also Moscow-Riga flight.

As seen in the graph, all airlines have set their base levels around 90€ mark, but only Air Baltic and Aeroflot manage to sell tickets more expensive than 200€. In the examined 2-month period average ticket prices are as follows: Aeroflot - 157€, Air Baltic - 125€, Transaero - 117€, UTair - 109€. Note that Air Baltic is the only airline charging for luggage on this route. The prices for all airlines make peaks also for well-ahead dates suggesting that lots of travelers on the route are date-inflexible.

Last year I analyzed Riga-Oslo route in a similar manner. The Riga-Oslo and Riga-Moscow routes have several common features – they are comparable in passenger flow and offered capacity, booth served by four airlines and three airports (in Oslo or Moscow) and are almost the same in lenght. The overall average available fare for Riga-Oslo in two month period was 71€ (including credit card fee) while for Riga-Moscow it is 128€. The higher price for Riga-Moscow flights seems to be a result of governmental control yet factors like different costumer groups and seasonality may have played a role.

Riga to Oslo ticket prices

Riga to Oslo is one of two routes from the Baltic States served by four airlines (the second being Riga-Moscow). While Riga has only one airport, Oslo area is covered by three airports: the primary Gardermoen airport (used by Air Baltic and Norwegian), secondary Rygge/Moss airport (used by Ryanair) and Sandefjord-Torp airport located more than 100km from Oslo, but convenient for area South-West of Oslo and chosen by Wizzair.

The biggest carrier on the route is Air Baltic accounting for 51% of capacity share and – as using smaller aircraft than others – 68% of frequency share. Closest runner-up is Norwegian with 19% of capacity and 14% of frequency. Ryanair offers 18% of capacity and 11% of frequency while Wizzair 12% of capacity and only 7% of flights as offering only two departures per week.

Fare graphs indicates two price peaks – one on Oslo-Riga route on December 15 to 23 and the second on Riga – Oslo route on January 1 to 5. This strongly suggests that during Christmas time flights are used by Latvian workers visiting their families. Each of the airlines tries to differ from the others – Air Baltic and Norwegian provides connecting flights and uses the primary airport, Air Baltic offers big number of departures. Ryanair targets price-sensitive passengers and population South-East fro Oslo, Wizzair relies less on Oslo city but caches passengers South-West from Oslo. Here you can see how well the airlines manage to translate their strategies into cash from tickets:

Edited Nov21 - I found an official confirmation that Air Baltic's EUR 5 transaction fee can be avoided by using Baltic Miles MasterCard so ticket prices in the research are lowered by EUR 5 and five euro surcharge to usual Visa and MasterCard is added.

The average fares in the two-month span (November 18 to January 17) are as follows: Ryanair – EUR 29, Wizzair – EUR 37, Norwegian – EUR 74, Air Baltic EUR 81 EUR 77. Prices for Air Baltic and Norwegian are extremely similar and they even peak at the same days indicating that the two companies compete for the same passengers. Less successful are the two youngest operators - Ryanair and Wizzair. Booth started the service over seven month ago but tickets are still extremely cheep and are not coming significantly more expensive closer to the flight dates. On the other hand during Christmas period Wizzair has as high prices as Air Baltic and Norwegian showing that their strategy of targeting specific region near Oslo works. Overall it is clear that the ticket prices for Riga – Oslo route is low due to the high supply and some operators (Ryanair and Wizzair in particular) may even drop it.

airBaltic Oulu Base – New Gateway to the Arctic

Though airBaltic’s intention to open a base in one of Finland’s regional airports was known already for several months – the official announcement came today - Oulu has been chosen over Tampere and Turku. Opening is going to happen in 2012, when Oulu terminal capacity will be increased. This decision is hardly explainable from point-to-point strategy as Southern Finland is more populous, the competition is still limited (especially from Turku) and flight times to Western European destinations are shorter. Furthermore - Tallinn and Vilnius base examples demonstrated – all other point-to-point bases for airBaltic has been a target for cuts if not working so well as from Riga. So is there any way how Oulu base can become a complementing not competing base in BT’s network?

  

The unique market - Arctic

RIX is in perfect location for serving Southern Finland, but the airports of Northern Finland are too far and with too less traffic to Western and Southern Europe. But the demand for Arctic and sub-Arctic routes can be high enough to sustain daily or double-daily flights if traffic from Oulu and other Finnish cities is added. Here is my vision how to make it work: 

The far north towns are proposed to be served with overnight flights arriving in Oulu at early morning. In Oulu passengers could change to:

1. Direct flight to Riga and further to any destination in Europe;

2. Any flight proceeding to towns in Southern Finland;

3. Other direct flights – for instance Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg.

Most of planes continue travel southwards with one-stop flight to Riga in order to provide link between Oulu and mayor Finnish cities and to pick up passengers for Riga hub departures starting at 10:00AM. Once arrived in Riga planes participate in daytime flights to destinations in Europe. As the Oulu-based planes most probably will be turboprops, they must serve the closest destinations from Riga – cities in Central Europe. Northwards journey starts shortly before 3:00PM and goes exactly the opposite way as the morning travel.

I see such advantages in this complex routing:

1. High aircraft utilization;

2. The widest possible market to towns in Arctic – important as the population is low;

3. Key markets using this routing: Arctic to Southern Finland via Oulu, Arctic to Riga and other mayor daytime destinations via Oulu; Southern Finland via Riga to Europe; Central Europe to nighttime destinations in N, E Europe and Asia via Riga;

4. Planes in utilization at Riga during the busiest daytime hours.

And such disadvantages:

1. Delay strategy is needed – being late is some segments may cause missed connections and delayed onward flights. But as booth Riga and Oulu are going to be bases, replacement capacities can be provided.

2. Tricky maintenance scheduling;

3. Arctic to South, West, Central Europe markets served with two transfers – one in Oulu, second in Riga. Situation can be improved by adding some direct flight to Arctic towns from Riga or offering more direct flights from Oulu to destinations in Europe.

Could the New airBaltic Terminal Become the First True Low-Cost Terminal?

Everyone who had air-traveled at least once had got familiar with the traditional order at airport: check-in, baggage drop, security, passport control, boarding, luggage reclaim and so on. But is it really the most appropriate, easiest and cheapest way to get people and their bags on and off the planes? There must be some more up-to-date model because the current system has strong roots in early luxury air travel when traveler numbers were low, ticked prices unaffordable for general public and service standards high.

Current terminal at Riga airport is now considerably crowded at peak times as airBaltic has created a local hub. All of the earlier expansion proposals came from airport itself and were some type of traditional glamorous ‘air-travel temples’ spread all over the world. The project did not move on and airBaltic took over the initiative of building a terminal for 7-8 million annual passengers with expansion possibilities to capacity of 14 million passengers. Terminal must be low cost (~EUR 95m) and satisfy needs of airBaltic. Here come my ideas for the terminal:

Self-Service Luggage Handling

The cheapest and most obvious way to handle luggage is to put this duty on the owner. This means no traditional luggage drop when entering the terminal but one must bring his suitcases as far as the aircraft and put it in trolley for loading onto aircraft. Arriving bags are delivered right near the aircraft and anyone can take them without any delays. Of course, all bags must comply with hand luggage safety standards so no sharp items or liquids can be carried. If all this is introduced luggage handing will cost less so most of restrictions and fees actually could be eliminated.

Problems start with other airports in airBaltic network – the arriving bags at Riga must be cleared as hand luggage not as checked-in luggage so gate baggage drop must be applied for everyone and several airports may not find it acceptable. Luggage transfers from traditional carriers to BT would be impossible and travelers would have to pick-up the bags from reclaim belt and go trough security again. Alternatively such type of luggage could be considered as air cargo and delivered at cargo facilities at RIX (with significantly longer delivery time).

Keeping the Terminal Simple

As terminal would not have a traditional baggage handling system, all the facilities can be located in single floor; there would be no need for check-in counters. Single floor and gate baggage drop don’t go well together with jetbridges so walk and bus gates are the only reasonable option also saving time.

New passenger oriented cargo and mail service must be developed for prohibited items in hand luggage. Sharp items and liquids could be delivered to destination with special mail service (optionally connected to traditional mail). The difference from current checked-in luggage would be earlier check-in times or later deliveries (booth in special offices), smaller item size. These items would not be attached to the particular flight where the owner flies but could be delivered to destination also earlier or later. The packages can be delivered to traveler’s preferred post office as regular mail so avoiding the need of make companies own post offices at all stations.

Maybe this all sound too crazy but just imagine how big savings could give significant airport cost reduction at hub airport for hub and spoke model airline. Hub model was introduced because it is cheaper than point-to-point model; it is multiple times easier to connect each node with one hub rather than each node with all of the others. Paradoxically European point-to-point LCC now can offer cheaper tickets with significantly more expensive network. Hub airlines can blame only themselves for high airport costs coming from starchitect terminals, luggage handling systems, jetbriges and 100m spans over check-in halls. 

Riga to London fare watch

Right now two airlines offers direct Riga – London service: airBaltic (Gatwick) and Ryanair (Stansted). FR operates twice daily (morning and evening) flights; airBaltic makes daily midday flight and additional evening flight on selected days during summer. Wizzair will start three weekly Luton flights in end of March so bringing some fresh air in the market.

Here is a graph of available ticket prices in March, April and September:


Wizzair is cleverly using the drop in Latvian advertising sector by putting their pink posters with cute flight attendants on virtually every free billboard in the town. Also promotional pricing with average March&April fares of €27 for Riga – London and €33 for London – Riga creates big public attention.

Average available fares on March and April for BT is €66 (RIX-LGW) and €76 (LGW-RIX); for FR €69 (RIX – STN) and €60 (STN – RIX). The very similar fare levels for FR and BT breaks the popular stereotype of Ryanair being the cheapest and airBaltic the most expensive. In London – Riga section the airport fares seems to make the actual difference between BT an FR (as all depart from one airport in Riga but different airports in London area).
In September the ticket prices for BT and W6 flights are actually higher than in April. airBaltic and Ryanair now put bigger accent on monthly sales with cheap tickets for close travel dates rather than traditional cheep fares for distant dates. For budget travelers it means that “book well in advance” tactics must be changed to “keep your bags packed and hope that your destination will be in the next sale list”.

Riga to Frankfurt - Prices of LH, BT and FR

Riga to Frankfurt is the only route from Riga with three competing airlines. Although airBaltic sell some Lufthansa connections – RIX to FRA seems to be at battlefield. airBaltic started this route in September as an important business destination for the connecting traffic but will BT steel Riga to Frankfurt O&D traffic?

Booth LH and BT operate the route daily and with the same type of aircraft, but – as airBaltic 737-500 has more dense seating - BT’s weekly seat capacity is higher.
Ryanair use more distant Hahn airport with is specialized in “illegal” transfers and serving other surrounding communities rather than Frankfurt city. Since BT’s entrance FR is no longer the only alternative to LH high fares (see graph) so the demand may be down (no proof).

As Lufthansa sustain a complex fare system with one-way tickets about the same price of a round trip – the round trip fares in this research is divided by two. So even don’t try to book them – they are imaginary fares. Lufthansa ticket include 20kg of checked-in baggage, booth BT and FR don’t.
The price graph clearly indicates – Ryanair is the cheapest option, then comes airBaltic, then Lufthansa. Variation of LH’s prices is extreme - from €147 to €510. It seems obvious that Lufthansa want to bring traffic to their hub instead of wasting the seats for the short Riga to Frankfurt service by offering more reasonable fares.

Estonian Air vs airBaltic on TLL – VNO

Tallinn to Vilnius route is the longest Baltic domestic route (530 km) and accounts for 7% scheduled seat capacity and for 10% departures on intra-Baltic aviation network. This route has suffered much from flyLAL bankruptcy (lost 2 daily departures) and from airBaltic Vilnius reductions (lost 2 more daily departures). Currently TLL-VNO is the only route where Estonian Air and airBaltic compete directly. As airBaltic has withdrawn morning an afternoon flights just six-weekly evening flights are left operated in an interesting pattern. Planes makes a triangle route RIX – TLL – VNO – RIX or vice versa departing 19:20 from booth Vilnius and Tallinn. Estonian Air is frequency leader on TLL – VNO but airBaltic offers more seats.

Estonian Air offers 2nd daily flights on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays while airBaltic fares are lower on all days in October and November. BT’s fares typically start at €67 while OV’s at €78.

airBaltic RIX Base: 2007 and 2009

While Q1 GDP in the Baltic’s is falling by 18% in Latvia and by 14% and 15% in Lithuania and Estonia respectively airBaltic in May sees a stunning 33% increase in passenger numbers at Riga base made by transfer passengers. What are the factors that make people transfer though RIX more and more?

Small Airport - Short Transfers
Riga airport is so tiny that getting from one gate to another takes no more than a few minutes and bit longer if passport control needed. For airBaltic that allows selling tickets with transfer time of 25 minutes - with makes total flight time comparable - in some city pairs - with direct service in  and allows more flights to be connected. Lost baggage numbers are not published so far. In future airport wants to keep transfer times in the same level but it may harder to manage if new terminals is added.

More Convenient Schedule Attracts Thousands
In comparison with year 2007 schedule is re-arranged to allow selling more connecting flights especially to and from Northern Europe.

In 2007 most flights could be divided within 4 groups (see visuals). Group 1 included Baltic and Scandinavian capital and limited number of cities in Western Europe. Group 2 included mostly eastern cities and few in Western Europe. Group 3 included all Nordic and Baltic destinations and key European destinations. Group 4 included just Baku, Tbilisi, Dublin and Saint Petersburg. Few low-frequency vacation destinations were operated out of these groups. This schedule allowed transfers between Western Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltic states to cities in the East (Kiev, Minsk, Tbilisi etc).

Things have changed much since 2007 although the same 4 flight groups are still live. Group 1 is almost the same as in 2007. Group 2 has experienced serious change. Now it consists mostly of West and South Europe destinations with high frequencies. Group 3 is the same just expanded. Group 4 gained low-capacity flights to Tallinn and Vilnius because of the very last arrival at destination and the very first departure. Group 5 is a newcomer. As it allows transfers with group 2 - booth in morning and evening - that's whay it has a big importance. Group 5 includes high capacity flights to Vilnius, Tallinn, Helsinki (B737-500 or -300 instead of F50) and other cities. If operated to close airports this group requires long night stops (as it is now) but I see big opportunities for group 5 to attract services to airports further in east. Now most of pax seems rotating trough groups 1-2-3 and 2-5. The original concept of transfers from the East to the West has become secondary. Flights to central Asia and Caucasus all are with night stop and can be connected at lest to flight group 2. Flights to Eastern Europe are split between all groups and have no common policy.

Punctuality Increase and Better On/Offboard Service
In summer 2008 airBaltic faced a decrease of 15-minute on-time performance down to 75% in August. In autumn situation gradually became better and reached record-high 94.2% on-time performance in May 2009. Furthermore some feeder operations in group 4 now backup group 5 in case of flights from group 2 being late.
In May airBaltic launched a business lounge at RIX (in reality – took over the only existing one) to attract more high-end passengers. And - even better - a portable entertainment system is for rent onboard flights longer than 3 hours.

Conections of Long-Haul Flights
Current flight group 5 allows operations for up to 15h whith -  together with 45min turnaround - allows to reach airports within 5700km - with is not enough to reach airports in the Fare East or in North America. For longer flights exist two options: 1st – to depart after group 2 arrives and arrive before groups 3 and 5 depart. This will work well if groups 3 and 5 are upgraded with second daily flights to West Europe destinations (MUC, CDG, AMS etc); 2nd option – departure after groups 1 and 5 arrive and return next day before group 2 depart. This requires upgrades of groups 1 and - again - 5. As group 3 is currently more developed than group 1 - first option is more reasonable. Booth options gives range of 8500km with is enough to reach all Asian cities (except Singapore) and US East coast cities.

If in an economic slump we see such increase in BT RIX traffic than what to expect at upturn? BTW - rumors are going that Warsaw and Pskov will be next destinations announced.

Skyways vs airBaltic on VNO-CPH

Skyways launched a Fokker 50 VNO-CPH-VNO service on weekdays starting 2 June but already in 4 June announced service cancellation between 29 June and 9 August. Flights in August will be operated twice weekly (Mondays and Fridays) and starting from 24 August the service is planned to became five times weekly again. Vilnius – Copenhagen route is already served twice daily by airBaltic with 120-seated B737-500. airBaltic is still unbeaten frequency (74%) and seating capacity (87%) leader. Why Skyways have faced problems with this route after just two days of operation?

Price Leader in June – Skyways, in September - airBaltic

Skyways offer the best price almost all days in June. The highest BT’s fare (€564) was found 7 June when just two business-class tickets were left. As Skyways is a newcomer (although information about it was circulating in media for a longer time) the bookings of June are no fully balanced. Skyways ticked prices include 20kg checked-in baggage but airBaltic luggage fare of €10 is not included in compared prices if the cheapest available ticked is in economy class.

September is the next month when Skyways plan full operation on this route. As the graph shows BT typically offers lower price than Skyways constant €132 which is almost double of June’s lowest €72. airBaltic’s one-way price varies between €46 on few dates to €211 in 13 September.

Fare Levels: Skyways Shocks
In order to inspect availability of lowest fares different numbers of passengers was entered in booth booking systems. This makes possible to find prices of up to 9 next tickets. A date (8 September) was selected to ensure that a very limited number of bookings are done. Skyways booking system showed a bad surprise – just seven tickets still available for €132 – 8th ticket cost €453 which is about the same level of airBaltic’s business-class tickets. The same fare was found on many other dates (but not all) in June, August, September and October. In the same time airBaltic offer 5 tickets for €85 (evening flight) and the rest for €114.

If Skyways €453 sky-high tickets (about 40 out of 50) are not just an error in the booking system or in my analysis I see no success in their VNO-CPH service. The Skyways prices in June show that ticket fares are grouped in more than just two fare levels so hope exist that autumn prices will be reloaded and maybe corrected to achieve smaller average fare. Still airBaltic have several more advantages in this route: a codeshare with SAS an other companies from Copenhagen; better service frequencies and more convenient flight times; possibility to book VNO-RIX-CPH or just RIX-CPH if needed. I advise Skyways to consider switching VNO-CPH capacity to some other Baltic or Scandinavian city - PLQ, KUR, LPX, VNT, TAY, EPU, VBY or other – and concentrating on local tourism.