airBaltic CEO flies Airbus A220

President and Chief Executive Officer of airBaltic, Martin Gauss, has successfully completed his Airbus A220-300 type rating training course, enabling him to perform captain’s duties on the aircraft and becoming the first airline CEO in the world to have gained type rating on the Airbus A220.

This will allow him to fly as ‘pilot in command’ on scheduled services, but not into London City Airport where only the series 200 is allowed to operate.  AirBaltic has to date 23 A220 in service with four still to put on line, and has a 30 aircraft option.

Martin Gauss, who began his professional career as a Boeing 737 pilot back in 1992, has maintained his commercial pilot’s licence throughout his career. The Airbus A220 type rating training was performed at airBaltic Training Centre in Riga (Latvia) and officially completed this year on 1 October.
 
Since May 2020, airBaltic operates all of its flights only on the Airbus A220-300s, thus minimizing the complexity and benefitting from the additional efficiency provided by the aircraft.
 
Air Baltic says the Airbus A220-300 has performed beyond the company’s expectations, delivering better overall performance, fuel efficiency and convenience for both passengers and the staff with its wide seats, large windows and more hand luggage space in the cabin.  Air Baltic’s A220-300s have 145 seats which means it fits comfortably between the smaller Embraer and larger A320 series/Boeing MAX types.
 
The new aircraft is also considerably quieter – with a four times smaller noise footprint. Moreover, at the moment it is the greenest commercial aircraft in the world, as it is the first aircraft to have a transparent declaration of the life-cycle environmental impact, helping to reduce CO2 and NOX emissions by 20% and 50% respectively.
 
https://youtu.be/f6OxkCKUXMg

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum