In a message to its customers, airBaltic’s CEO Martin Gauss has revealed that some of its aircraft remain grounded, due to lack of spare parts needed for crucial maintenance work.
“Currently, global supply chain issues are forcing six of our aircraft to remain on the ground because we are missing spare parts for regular maintenance work. Some of these aircraft have been grounded for six months due to missing parts, which is very uncommon,” he said.
The airline has gone ahead with a temporary solution to fix some of these issues – namely, wet-leasing aircraft from other carriers. However, this is looking to be remedied as soon as possible, as Gauss states: “When summer is over and we will have reduced our flight programme for the winter season, European airports should be able to handle the situation better. A return to normal operations is not far off.”
AirBaltic currently has 36 A220s in its fleet, and so this grounding of six of the craft is a major stall to the airline’s continued efforts to resume normal operations and catch up with delays caused by the pandemic and increased passenger demand.
