airBaltic

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Riga to Kiev. Apart from painfully slow customer service on-board, another deceptive and annoying thing is requirement to pay for adjacent seat allocation within the same booking. I know this tactic has been previously employed by some low costers but it was then pulled due to negative publicity and complaints from customers. Hopefully the same will ultimately happen with airBaltic.

✅ Trip Verified | Paris to Riga return last June. Air Baltic lost our 9 year old daughter's luggage, which happens from time to time. That is understandable. We arrived in Riga on a Thursday for a six day trip. It took them until Monday night to get our daughter's bag to us in Old Riga, just a few miles from the airport. She was without shoes or a coat and we put off making purchases, knowing the luggage would be delivered quickly. As each day passed, we were given vague answers and handed off to other people. We ended up having to purchase clothing and toiletries for her, and Air Baltic refused to refund us for the bulk of the purchases, saying they would pay only 40 EUR. I was not upset that they lost our luggage. I am very upset, however that they would not resolve our problem until two days before we were to fly home, then they would not reimburse us for necessary items, and here is is mid March (this happened last July) and we still have not been paid the 40 EUR that they promised. They are treating us like we did something wrong, when we were just innocent customers. I will never do business with them again, even though the flights were fine and fairly priced. Poor customer service continues to haunt us 8 months after they lost our daughter's suitcase.

✅ Trip Verified | Helsinki to Hamburg via Riga. Small propeller aircraft, not much space inside. Very impolite staff at Helsinki, checked the hand luggage at the gate very exactly - €60 if it‘s even one more kg than allowed. Fee for choosing a seat even at online checkin. Bought a croissant at €5 - very very small and dry. It seems that they just want to sell as much extras as they can, got several emails with advertisings for that before my flight. And the the ticket wasn’t even cheap. Will definitely never fly airBaltic again.

✅ Trip Verified | Helsinki to Riga. Ridiculous cabin baggage rules. 8kg limit for carry-on case, handbag and duty free shopping. Even 1kg over will incur an incredible fee of 60 euros. Clearly something to make more money. Will always go for other options in the future, even if 40-60 euros more, just out of principle. An experience like this is enough to put me off for life.

✅ Trip Verified | Riga to Frankfurt. Web check-in smooth, guaranteed seats together at an additional 9.99 EUR p.p. Unfriendly staff at gate in Riga, picking out guests with probably "oversized" hand-luggage, overall their luggage-policy is creating a mess on the ground as well as in the aisles. New Bombardier CS300-aircraft impressive at first sight: attractive mood-lighting, really good seat-pitch, smallish monitors overhead each row featuring airshow only, but still better than nothing, and the first good sound-system I ever noticed in an aircraft for public announcements/lounge music. Large overhead-bins for the huge amounts of hand-luggage on a fully-booked flight like this. Contrary to inbound flight a few days before unfriendly crew. All drinks/food at additional, relatively high costs. The seats are hard as solid wood, headrest included. However the real letdown of this newly designed aircraft are the noise level and vibrations. Sitting above the wings feels like riding a rocket throughout the entire flight: whereas models like the A320 or B738 provide a smooth ride soon after takeoff, the CS300 gives you quite a noise and constant vibrations from the massive engines, which seem to be intensified by the hard seats. Weather conditions were absolutely okay, but the flight felt like flying through clouds all the time - not relaxing at all. So better avoid rows 14 to at least 22, the back of the aircraft was much quieter. Upon arrival in Frankfurt no sufficient amount of buses due to full load of pax and their hand-luggage. Last bus-load had to wait on the tarmac while aircraft was already being cleaned.

✅ Trip Verified | Tbilisi to Copenhagen via Riga. This is the worst experience and worst airline. Staff are rude, even staff at Riga airport. Flight got delayed in Tbilisi and the flight attendant lied that the connecting flight from Riga to Copenhagen will wait for us, but it turned out to be that it took off before we land in Riga. They compensated us with a lousy 3 euro voucher for a 5 hour delay. Almost 150 people aboard were delayed too for different destination. Air Baltic does not care about customer service. When I told them this is the last time I am flying with them, they replied: your choice!.

✅ Trip Verified | Geneva to Vilnius via Riga. This is worst than a low cost company! First, they refuse to serve you a glass of water freely as they are selling bottle of water on their menu. They do not serve anything free (I know it has changed now and some of them do not serve snacks etc, but at least water!). It would ok if it was as cheap as a low coast but this is not the case! I have a suitcase of 23x55x40 which normally fits airlines except Air Baltic - so I had to pay 60€ to check in my hand luggage. I do not recommend this airline at all.

✅ Trip Verified | Riga to Budapest. A typical semi lowcost airline. The main hub (Riga Airport) is clean and nice, the ground service of the airline is nothing special. The legroom is amazing compared to other lowcost airlines and the cabin is very clean. Meals and drinks are available on purchase, the cabin crew served meals and beverages two times during our flight (you can preorder your meals too, the variety of meals is wide). The cabin crew was very moody, the couldn't make even a smile. Our flight was 2 hours 10 minutes long: this is the time what is unbearable on a turboprop aircraft. You cannot sleep and relax because of the noise.

✅ Trip Verified | For 3 years I have been flying with airBaltic and this is the first time I have seen them make money on luggage allowances. They stopped lots of people to check if the hand luggage fit their requirements. Usually mine is ok. This time they asked me for a 60e extra. The price is already expensive, how can they pretend to be low cost and have lots of hidden extras. I do not recommend them at all. The only point in travelling with them is that they have the monopoly unfortunately.

✅ Verified Review | Kiev to Tallinn via Riga. I am very disappointed by the airline. I had layover 40 minutes in Riga where I have to pass passport and security control. The plane from Kiev landed 20 minutes later. I was expecting the airline worker to met us near the gate, but there was nobody. On the passport control, there was a long queue. On the security check, there was an even bigger queue. However, only one line worked. Moreover, all people in the queue also were late, so I was not able to fast forward. We have managed to arrive at the gate 3 minutes prior the departure time and board the plane. The plane was Boeing 737-300 which is an old garbage. The brakes produced terrible noise. The interior was old. The tickets are expensive, while the service is worse then low-cost airlines.