For a few months it has been on the horizon that the cooperation between Xfly and the Polish airline LOT is on the brink. The Estonian government has repeatedly made it clear that it wants to buy back the minority stake. Xfly boss Erki Urva has now confirmed in a local TV interview that the Polish Star Alliance member will get out.

The Nordic Aviation Group was founded as the successor to Estonian Air. Various flights were offered from Tallinn under the Nordica brand. In the absence of AOC, they initially cooperated with Adria Airways. After the Nordica subsidiary Regional Jet (now Xfly) received its own approval, a cooperation with LOT was entered into. The Polish state airline took a 49 percent stake in the ACMI and charter operator.

The Nordica brand was discontinued in the previous year. Selected routes continued from Tallinn under the commercial responsibility of LOT. But that is not enough for the government and if you are already providing state aid, you want to have complete and sole control over the group of companies again. The cooperation with the Polish carrier will therefore end at the end of November 2020.

The state has already injected 30 million euros through Nordica. Now Estonia is once again the sole owner of the Nordic Aviation Group, which includes Nordica, Xfly and Transpordi Varahaldus. The latter is a leasing company that owns four Bombardier CRJ-900s operated by Xfly. The Lessor is to be merged with the sister company Nordica.

The termination of the cooperation with LOT also means that their flight numbers will no longer be used in the future. However, it is not planned that Xfly will fly under the EE code, because Nordica itself has meanwhile obtained AOC and an operating license. This means that the company is not a “virtual airline”, but an airline. No 2-letter code has yet been assigned, but Xfly boss Urva said that this should be used in the future. One aircraft is currently registered in the register on Nordica.

Within the group of companies there will be a separation between the ACMI / Charter (Xfly) and scheduled flights (Nordica) division. The wet lease flights for other airlines are to be continued, so it is also possible that Xfly could fly for Nordica. The group of companies posted a loss of 3,8 million euros in the previous year. This year it is already 20 million euros, whereby these are to be offset with the help of state aid. The approval of the EU Commission is still pending.