airBaltic

Is airBaltic safe?

Yes. airBaltic, Latvia's state-owned airline, has not had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft in 31 years of flying. It flies a single type, the Airbus A220-300, with one of the youngest fleets in Europe, under Latvian oversight within the EU's EASA system. We score it 88, level with Finnair and Wizz Air.

The catch is closer to the ground. Three of airBaltic's serious incidents since 2018 were A220s leaving the runway at its Riga hub, and an older Q400 had its nose gear fold on landing there in 2016. None hurt anyone, but they are why the incident score sits at 72.

Has airBaltic ever had a serious accident?

The closest was on 17 September 2016. A Bombardier Q400 left Riga with 63 passengers and 4 crew, and after take-off a warning showed that the nose gear had not locked. The crew stopped the climb and held near the airport for about two hours before landing. The nose gear collapsed slowly as the aircraft slowed, and it stopped on the runway with damaged nose gear doors. Nobody was hurt.

Latvia's Transport Accident and Incident Investigation Bureau (TAIIB) found that bushings in the gear's lock link had come loose, letting de-icing fluid and moisture in. The joint corroded until the mechanism jammed. The gear maker told investigators it had not seen corrosion this bad on lock links from other operators. Transport Canada then ordered repeat inspections across the Q400 fleet, and airBaltic cut its lubrication interval. The Q400 has since left the fleet: airBaltic has flown only A220s since May 2020.

Runway excursions at Riga

The pattern we weigh most is on the runway. In June 2018 an A220 arriving from Geneva briefly ran off the side of the runway at Riga after landing, then came back onto it and stopped. A nose wheel tyre burst and two edge lights were broken. It was the crew's third approach, in gusty wind near a thunderstorm, and investigators blamed uncoordinated rudder and brake inputs on the ground. TAIIB heard of the event only the next day, from air traffic control, and found that airBaltic's manuals had no procedure for notifying it promptly.

In December 2021 an A220 from Stockholm skidded off the same runway in heavy snow, hit a taxiway sign with an engine cowl and stopped in the snow. The 44 passengers left unhurt. TAIIB blamed the captain's handling on the ground and gaps in airBaltic's training for unusual situations, along with an out-of-date runway condition report from the airport, and asked airBaltic to review its pilot training.

In March 2023 another A220, flying in from Paris at night, partly left the side of the same runway in a gusting crosswind on a surface with frozen deposits. Only the main gear tyres were damaged and everyone left normally. TAIIB's final report, published in April 2024, named the A220's brake control system as the proximate cause: on the slippery surface the anti-skid let the wheels lock. An inaccurate runway condition report, the gusts and a late switch from autobrake to manual braking contributed. Airbus began testing changes to the braking software in 2024 and started certifying them in 2025.

None of these was close to a disaster, and Riga gets long icy winters. But three excursions at the home base in five years is more than a clean record shows, and we score incidents lower for it.

How old is airBaltic's fleet?

Young. In February 2025 airBaltic's A220-300s averaged 4.39 years, and the airline won ch-aviation's award for Europe's third-youngest fleet, its third year in a row among the winners. It became the A220-300's launch operator in 2016 and flew 54 of them in August 2026, which it calls the world's largest A220-300 fleet.

The weak point is the engine. The Pratt & Whitney PW1500G had a run of in-flight shutdowns on early A220s, and in February 2020 an airBaltic jet flying from Riga to Malaga shut down its left engine and diverted to Bordeaux; the US NTSB took the investigation. In July 2021 both engines of another airBaltic A220 shut down by themselves as it touched down at Copenhagen; it rolled clear of the runway and nobody was hurt (Canada's TSB is investigating). More recently the problem has been supply, not safety: slow engine maintenance kept an average of 13 jets on the ground in early 2025 and forced airBaltic to cancel 4,670 summer flights. In the first half of 2026 none were grounded for that reason.

Does Chapter 11 affect safety?

airBaltic filed for Chapter 11 in New York on 14 September 2026. Its first-half loss was €128.2 million, which it put down to jet fuel prices, currency losses and higher financing costs. It plans to shrink from 54 to about 36 aircraft by the end of 2026 and lean harder on leasing aircraft and crews to other airlines. The airline says flights operate as scheduled and tickets stay valid.

Bankruptcy protection does not loosen the rules. airBaltic keeps its certificate, and Latvia's regulator and EASA oversee it as before. What we watch in airlines under financial pressure is experienced staff leaving and maintenance being stretched. In October airBaltic said it would cut 500 to 700 of its roughly 3,000 jobs to fit the smaller fleet; we found no sign of maintenance problems or action by the regulator. Expect cancelled routes, not a weaker safety record.

Flying airBaltic for another airline

More than a third of airBaltic's flying is wet lease. In 2025 it flew 30,100 of its 78,400 flights for other airlines, mostly Lufthansa Group carriers such as Lufthansa and Swiss, under a 21-aircraft deal that runs until 2028. If your Lufthansa or Swiss ticket shows an A220 "operated by airBaltic", the crew, maintenance and certificate are airBaltic's, and this page is the one that applies.

GPS jamming and closed airspace

Satellite navigation jamming has been frequent around the Baltic since 2022, much of it near Russia's Kaliningrad exclave. airBaltic's chief pilot has described it as a small cockpit message that makes crews switch to other navigation methods, which are less precise but cause no major difficulty. Routes also avoid Russian, Belarusian and Kaliningrad airspace, which adds detours and extra fuel. The chief pilot also reported military aircraft flying with transponders switched off, so collision warning systems cannot see them. We weigh all of this in the environment score of 82, the same as Finnair's.

How we scored it

The accident record (93) and the young A220 fleet (92) carry airBaltic. Oversight scores 88: EASA rules and IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary, held back by the late reporting in 2018. Serious incidents (72) cost the most, for the three Riga runway excursionsRunway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary, the Q400 gear collapse and two engine shutdowns. Overall 88.