Clean Break: the company completely halting Russian engagements or exiting Russia
Leave WithdrawalairBaltic is the Latvian national airline providing passenger and cargo transportation.
Clean Break: the company completely halting Russian engagements or exiting Russia
Leave WithdrawalLeave Russian market until further notice. Latvian airline airBaltic has been buying fuel from Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, violating EU sanctions. The carrier has conducted at least 13 transactions, 11 of which were concluded in 2023 with TatneftAviaService. Two more were closed in February and March 2022 under contracts with Gazpromneft-Aero. In total, airBaltic imported 3,100 tons of jet fuel for 206.7 million rubles. Information about this was found in declarations from two customs databases: ImportGenius and the closed archive of foreign economic activity of Russia. Both the airline company and the Latvian authorities insist that they did not cooperate with the Russian postal authorities in the first months of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. At a press conference on February 14, Imants Jansons stated that AirBaltic suspended all flights to Russia immediately after the start of a large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Jansons learned that one of the state companies was a partner of AirBaltic during the period when the airline canceled flights to Kazan. In addition, Gazpromneft-Aero withheld payments from AirBaltic between now and April 2022, including for refueling aircraft from Lisbon. In this case, it is emphasized that all these operations were carried out before the EU sanctions were imposed.