AIRBALTIC review :  11 November 2009 by Y Antropova (UK)

LGW-RIX last week. Usually, flying out of Riga with Airbaltic and checking-in online I have a rather pleasant experience. Flying out of LGW, where there is no online check-in and where Servisair handles the check-in, the experience is worse than with low cost carriers. Besides the usual queues, the check-in agent made me spend 15 min going back and forth between her desk and another one to pay for 1 extra kg of luggage and Servisair wanted to charge me GBP5 for paying the GBP12 charge with a credit card. I know the rule of 20kg + 6 kg carry on, but never in my life any other airline ever made a fuss about 1 extra kg and I have flown with many. Air Baltic does not call itself a low-cost carrier and no longer charges low cost to justify poor service, but it is, and a greedy one with all kind of extra charges, very high charges for any changes to the ticket and a mysterious "surcharge" that they add to every ticket, bundled with taxes, but not refundable in case you want to cancel your ticket. I have requested Air Baltic to explain the nature of this surcharge several times, but still failed to receive a satisfactory explanation. I do have to say a good word about the FA crew as I have had only good experience with their attitude even if the salad I ordered onboard was a joke. In summary, I am still sad about the day BA stopped flying to Riga as at least then I could make a choice about service and price. I understand that Air Baltic needs to establish itself in a very competitive industry and grow in a very challenging market - I just wish they did it with more class.

AIRBALTIC review :  8 October 2009 by V Neagu (Moldova)

Chisinau-Riga-Dushanbe in Economy Class. Fokker 50 in reasonably good condition on the first flight, followed by Boeing 737-300 on the second leg. What was a big disappointment were the staff, particularly on the Riga-Dushanbe flight. 6 female flight attendants who thought they were the protagonists of a fashion walk and not there to cater to passengers. Outrageous like "I am busy don't you see" and "I only have two hands so wait". The stewardesses were primarily concerned about going to sleep as soon as possible, so the first thing they did was to configure a sleeping area in the back of the plane. I asked one of the flight attendants whether the flight to Dushanbe is always full and one of the FAs said "unfortunately". I asked why unfortunately and she replied: we have to serve a lot of people. Food service took almost 2.5 hours with hot meals depleted by the mid-section of the airplane. Will not fly them again.

AIRBALTIC review :  5 October 2009 by Alex Starks (Israel)

Munchen staff excellent, MUC-RIX flight clean and efficient. Riga check-in is a disaster. 5-6 agents crowding around two counters making a discussion group of every issue. Unclear rules of baggage allowance - two agents arguing whether they should count pieces or kilos. Took 40 minutes to check in. Staff unprofessional and rude. Lounge in Riga OK, but they stopped cooperating with any other major FF cards - probably tried to charge too much. Prices of tickets very far away from low-cost. Leg room tight and no service on the plane. Funniest rule is not to distribute pillows before takeoff and collecting them before landing, stating "security".

AIRBALTIC review :  15 September 2009 by M Gordon (Sweden)

Nice-Stockholm. Liked the food that we've ordered and they had great tea. I recommend paying the extra for food onboard for longer flights. I dislike that tea wasn't included in the meal but the tea that they served but €2-3 is a fair price. The staff was nice. The airport in Riga is small but very modern which is very nice since the transfer is fast.

AIRBALTIC review :  11 September 2009 by Rosanne Skopp (USA)

Tel Aviv to Riga. Customer service is nonexistent on Air Baltic. Our flight was scheduled to depart TLV at 5:15 a.m. but I heard from an acquaintance who had made the same trip exactly one week earlier that the schedule had changed and the flight was now due to leave at 8am. Since there is no one to phone in Israel representing Air Baltic I called Latvia, an expensive call! The 5:15am time was confirmed so we went to the airport arriving before 3am, a horrible time! As soon as we arrived we saw that the flight was not scheduled to leave before 8am. We, and the other 100 plus passengers were stranded in an airport in the middle of the night for no earthly reason as Air Baltic own personnel told us, when we finally were allowed to check in, that the flight time had been changed over a week before. But no one from Air Baltic thought it might be nice to inform the passengers! Ridiculous and insulting. Since then I have been trying to extract an explanation and settlement from Air Baltic. They simply do not care! They do not respond and they just hope I will go away.

AIRBALTIC review :  2 September 2009 by A Ringnalda (Netherlands)

AMS-RIX-VNO (and other flights). Staff often do not speak English well and make up ad-hoc rules. Very little leg room; taller passengers will have to cram their knees against the seat in front of them, even if it is not reclined. No service provided on board, although free drinks are provided on short 1 hr flights. Overall, while the onboard experience is that of a low-cost carrier, the prices are not (the prices advertised online are exclusive of 'hidden' costs such as taxes and admin fees). Online check-in or self check-in at the airport are not always available, leading to unavoidable long queues. There is no online system for changes to tickets, so changes in dates etc. have to be communicated manually (taking about 48 hrs). I would not recommend flying this airline if you can avoid it.

AIRBALTIC review :  27 August 2009 by Daniel Glesby (Canada)

TLV-RIX-LGW. Got to the check in counter at 02:30 for a 05:00 flight. First you have to stand in line for the bag scanner which checks the bags for explosives that only took about 20 minutes. Then I got to the counter and was the 3rd person in line. My first flight was on a 737-500 (the tightest leg room I have ever encountered) I got seat 6A. On the TLV-RIX flight the flight attendants were non existant and did not see the drink cart go by once on a long 4 hour flight. Things got better on the RIX-LGW flight as it was on a newer and nicely refurbished 757-200. The drinks/food came by once and the flight attendants were friendly enough and efficient.

AIR BALTIC review :  13 July 2009 : by J Teelem

LGW-RIX. One of the worst flight experiences. The food service was terrible. Since they are charging for food, it takes a very long time to serve people, because each credit card transaction takes time and then people have to sign the receipt etc. I was very hungry, but since I was sitting in a back row, I had to wait 2 hrs for the food service to reach my row! And when I finally got a chance to order food, the flight attendant suggested to skip the warm meal, because we were already starting to descend! It's worth mentioning that since the flight attendants were busy serving food during the whole flight, they didn't have any time to assist any other passengers, so they just totally ignored when someone pressed the service button.

AIR BALTIC review :  4 June 2009 : by Michael Kasberg

HAM-RIX-HAM. Clean aircraft, young but friendly cabin crews. Had to pay about 4 Euro for a (double) sandwich, 10 Euro for a full meal with wine & dessert, which is adequate. All flights were on time, baggage needed 30 minutes in RIX. Internet check-in worked good. Nothing special but good value for money.

AIR BALTIC review :  3 June 2009 : by Kim Krister

TXL-RIX-HEL one way. Internet check in showed me exit seat available, I chose it. But during boarding that row was not an exit row. Also for second leg it showed me row 4 for two times, confusing. First leg with B737-500 with cramped legroom and narrow Recaro seats. Cabin was hot, it cooled down during flight and was soon hot again after landing. Drinks and snack for purchase, prices were steep. Crew smiling, but their inflight announcements in English were difficult to hear and understand. Second leg with F50, airport announcement was made that flight will leave late due to late arrival. As no aircraft did not land at RIX in late night. After 45 min of departure, a bus transfer to aircraft was made just to send us back. Then an announcement of technical failure in aircraft and no other info. Also Air Baltic ground staff was unskilled to handle an upset passenger with a child who refused to board a plane for second time. Finally arrived safely to HEL in small hours at night making a six hours journey from Berlin and leading obligatory use of taxi to home. All in all this very inconvenient experience made me to think: was it all worth for saving money in flight tickets?

AIR BALTIC review :  1 June 2009 : by A Martina

BCN-RIX, RIX-VNO, RIX-TAL. Good experiences, young but nice staff, free refreshments on board (water or juice). For meals you now have to pay but the quality of the food and price is reasonable. If one wants can rent personal entertainment device on longer flights at modest price. Online check-in was easy. I don't know about the luggage service as I never checked-in luggage with them.

AIR BALTIC review :  20 May 2009 : by Paritosh Vasava

Helsinki-Riga-Rome. Helsinki-Riga flight about 50 minutes. Fokker 50 flight was small but ok for short journey. Riga-Rome lag was in Boeing 737-300. Flight was big and seats were comfortable. Food was paid but reasonably priced. I got the total journey for about 120 euros, which is good for such a flight.

AIR BALTIC review :  5 May 2009 : by Jesper Jensen

CPH-RIX-CPH. Very basic flights, but very pleasant crews. I like the option to buy a hot meal, other airlines with purchase catering should add that option. Online check in option v efficient. As a Eurobonus gold member I have lounge access, in CPH the SAS lounges that are very nice. in RIX the lounge is nice, and a good alternative to a not that nice airport. Flights on time, but bagage delivery good be quicker in Riga.

AIR BALTIC review :  23 April 2009 : by George Vrontos

ATH-RIX-ATH. I am tired of those low cost airlines that they try to get extra money from services. I did not had any problem but they weighed the carry on hoping to charge me for overweight, also it is annoying for the cabin crew passing to serve you food and drinks and to have to pay for that. I paid 10 euro for a hot meal (small piece of pork) and a bottle of wine. One of your viewers wrote that he had plenty of food cheap!!, where did he found that? The aircraft was new and clean and on time (both ways). But for my opinion they do not worth the 3 stars you are giving them.

AIR BALTIC review :  15 April 2009 : by S Paice

LGW-RIX-LGW. Both legs in a very clean and tidy plane with good flight attendants. Food and drinks onboard very reasonably priced - a 500ml beer was a mere 2 lats and the hot food options looked pretty good and also good value. Bags unloaded very quickly at both ends, very pleasant trip overall

AIR BALTIC review :  28 November 2008 : by Pierre Joliveau

CDG-RIX-CDG. Overall experience was OK, seats a bit cramped, especially near the windows, but comfortable nonetheless (Recaro leather seats) on this 737-300 with winglets. Aircraft was clean. The landing at night in RIX was very good. The return flight was equally OK, arrived 20 mins. earlier than scheduled. Luggage arrived quickly both in RIX and CDG. Will fly the airline again, considering the prices. It's not exactly a luxury airline but the ride was fine for me.

AIR BALTIC review :  25 November 2008 : by B Vincent

OSL-RIX B733 and RIX-VNO F50. I had been caught up in some schedule changes (originally it was a direct flight), but Air Baltic kept me informed and handled my requests. Boeing on the first leg was fitted out with high density seating, but new leather seats well designed to maximise available leg room and quite comfortable. The F50 on the second flight, whilst perfectly serviceable did look a bit tired, and while I understand the need to rationalise timetables, 3 hours at Riga airport is the most I would ever want to spend. Still, for the price paid, I have no complaints.

AIR BALTIC review : 23 October 2008 : by I Ashworth

Customer Rating : 4/5

RIX-LGW. Quick check-in, on-time departure, nice cabin crew. Bags off quick in Gatwick.

AIR BALTIC review : 15 October 2008 : by R Müller

Customer Rating : 2/5

Mostly empty flight in a standard B737 RIX-HEL. Service attitude of FA's were from the 80's in Latvia and one of the FA's made herself comfortable behind the curtain of the empty business class. Food basic and quite expensive (nothing for free of course). Ticket was cheap and that's the only reason to fly them. How this airline is in the same category on this site as SAS and Finnair is beyond me.