airBaltic Welcomes 48th Airbus A220-300 Jet To The Fleet

airBaltic has continued to expand its fleet, welcoming its 48th Airbus A220-300 aircraft on July 23, with the narrowbody jet having entered service on the following day.

Adding more A220s

The all-Airbus A220-300 operator, which now has 48 Airbus A220-300 aircraft, welcomed its 48th aircraft on July 23. The aircraft operated a direct flight from the Airbus Canada final assembly line (FAL) in Mirabel, Quebec, Canada.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, airBaltic detailed that its 48th A220-300 was the second delivery of a new aircraft during the year, with the airline adding that the aircraft type has already carried over 16.2 million passengers.

According to Flightradar24 data, the A220-300 departed Montreal Mirabel International Airport (YMX) at 14:22 local time (UTC -4) on July 23 and arrived at Riga Airport (RIX), the main base of airBaltic, at 4:52 local time (UTC +3).

Ch-aviation fleet records showed that Airbus previously delivered airBaltic’s 47th on February 12, with the aircraft, registered as YL-ABU, becoming the airline’s first delivery in 2024.

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Interestingly, airBaltic’s newest A220-300, registered as YL-ABV, entered service almost immediately. Flightradar24 showed that after the aircraft had landed at RIX at 4:52 on July 24, at 11:44 local time, it had already departed for a flight to Rome Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino Airport (FCO).

Photo: airBaltic

airBaltic flight BT633 was scheduled to land at FCO at 13:35 local time (UTC +2). The Latvian airline has scheduled six weekly flights from RIX to FCO in July, the only direct connection between the two capitals during the month, according to data from the aviation analytics company Cirium.

In general, airBaltic has scheduled 1,025 flights in July. However, the Latvian airline has also wet-leased some of its aircraft to Eurowings, Lufthansa, and Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS), and with those operations, the Latvian carrier’s weekly itineraries number 1,651 during the month.

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Growing commitment to the A220-300

Since taking delivery of its first A220-300, which was then known as the Bombardier CSeries CS300, in November 2016, airBaltic has slowly pivoted to becoming an all-A220-300 operator, a process that it had accelerated during the pandemic.

Airbus announced that it would acquire a 50.01% interest in the CSeries Aircraft Limited Partnership (CSALP) company, which build and sold the CSeries aircraft, in October 2017, with the partnership becoming effective July 1, 2018.

Photo: StockPhotosLV | Shutterstock

In February 2020, Airbus stated that it now held a 75% stake in the aircraft program, which was by then renamed to the Airbus Canada Limited Partnership, with Bombardier exiting the partnership after it had received $591 million, net of adjustments.

Nevertheless, airBaltic became the airline that has operated the largest number of flights with the type, beating Delta Air Lines to the title. In July, airBaltic and Delta Air Lines had a market share of 19% and 17.5%, respectively, of the total A220 weekly departures, including the A220-100.

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