With the arrival of the International Air Transport Associations’ (IATA) Annual General Meeting in Turkey, executives have flocked to discuss the state of the industry.
As such, airBaltic is reportedly eyeing the purchase of a further 30 Airbus A220 aircraft to boost their operations.
airBaltic has been a long operator of the series and utilised it to its advantage across its network.
Interestingly in the future purchase from the Latvian carrier, there’ll be the possibility to switch to the Airbus A220-500, the long-rumoured upcoming variant to the series, per Reuters.
However, the ability to change to the -500 will only be made possible following the type’s launch. At this point the launch date is unclear.
The A220-500 has many admirers despite not having launched yet. AirBaltic is one of the leading carriers vocally expressing interest in such a type. Meanwhile, executives at Airbus have always said it’s a matter of when rather than if the plane launches.
Reports indicated the 2023 Paris Airshow could be the point for the launch of the new variant. However, an Airbus spokesperson would later note that they would pass on this airshow as a launch point, highlighting other priorities such as supply chain issues hampering day-to-day at the company.
