airBaltic

I booked a flight from Moscow to Warsaw via Riga on April 25th. The night before I tried to check in and having put in my flight locator number I was informed it was not possible to checkin online from that location and a list of cities were listed where it was possible to check-in from and yes Moscow wasn't on the list. The next day I arrived at the Domodedovo airport at 12 noon for my 1450 flight and discovered that my flight wasn't even listed. I found the Air Baltic counter and produced my e-ticket and I was informed via a computer printout that my flight was now leaving at 2245 via the Sheremetyevo Airport and that flight would arrive in Riga at 2330. This was the first I'd heard of any change so you can imagine my horror. The lady at the counter was no help as she couldn't speak English. There was no way I could catch my connecting flight to Warsaw that day and apparently Air Baltic was quite happy with the thought of having me sleep at the airport that night. Totally unimpressed with the customer service. They had my email details and didn't use them. It cost me 600 on another flight to get to Warsaw. Never ever will Air Baltic receive my business again.

Exactly the same thing happened to us. We booked a flight Dublin - Riga - Moscow for EUR 120 and Air Baltic cancelled. They asked us to request a refund via the website and this was down so I called on 25th March to request a refund. I called on 4th April to chase my refund and was told to 'be patient' then called again yesterday (6th April) and was told the refund had only been processed on that day! Not impressed with this at all.

KBP-RIX. Check in agent at Kiev very polite. Air Baltic seem to be concerned about the hand luggage limits as every passenger's one piece of luggage was affixed with a "Cabin Baggage" tag. Boarded the Boeing 737-500 via bus not a very pleasant way to board a flight but out with Air Baltic's control. Very limited space on board for hand baggage the cab=in crew member's suggestion of putting it under our seat was a bit naive since both my friend and I were too tall to fit our feet under the seats with any bags there. Eventually managed to stow our small bags under the middle seat in front as it remained unoccupied. The crew were actually friendly but strict enough with certain passengers who broke the rules (standing up whilst taxiing etc) that they reassured you of your safety. Arrived in Riga on schedule most passengers were connecting elsewhere but for the rest of us the luggage arrived very quickly. I'd definitely fly Air Baltic again as they are very good value for money if you book early enough.

Poor customer service and support! We purchased two direct round-trip non-refundable flights from Ireland to Riga in mid-February for travel in late May for roughly $600 then made our non-refundable hotel reservations in Riga and Ireland. Air Baltic cancelled our flights in mid-March with a form letter telling us to "have a nice flight". They offered to put us on flights 2 days later on departure and 1 day early on return. I informed the AirBaltic that we had non-negotiable hotel reservations and asked AirBaltic to work with us with their air travel partners to get us on other alternate flights to Riga on our established travel dates for roughly the same cost. I provided the specific flight connection info. No substantive response was from them. I then requested a full refund on the website. The website was non- functional. I sent them an email to requested a refund and rebooked through another airline at a cost of more than $500 above our original AirBaltic fare. AirBaltic still provides the short Baltic Sea overflight. The beneficiary of this fare scam appears to be AirBaltic operating with minimal competition in the Riga air travel market . They are charging us more for a short hop flight than our original Dublin-Riga round-trip. Avoid them if you can.

Pleasant experience on numerous return flights from Riga to different airport across Europe - use it on a monthly basis for flights between Riga and London alone. It's not really a low- cost airline so it wouldn't be fair to compare it to Ryanair or easyJet which it stands superior to.

Very expensive to check in baggage unfriendly staff etc. Air Baltic is not a low cost airline! Tickets are very expensive and very often when you are booking tickets on their web site an error occurs and when you start over again the price is almost double!

TLL-RIX-KPB economy. High overall price despite being advertised as low cost carrier. €190 for one way. Staff young and fresh but quite comfortable and fast few smiles could be added though. Legroom is good enough for a short flight. Delay in RIX for 30 min. Overall I would fly with them again. Food looks goods but prices seem to be outrage us.

SVO-RIX-SVO. I liked both flights. The crew was friendly and efficient. All flights on time. The food which was on sale on-board was very good! Legroom was a bit insufficient for me but I guess it's an OK situation for a low-cost airline.

RIX-AMS. Completely inadequate experience and will never use this airline again. In Amsterdam there was a massive queue - I arrived 2 hours in advance but despite that I noticed everything was moving so slowly at the airport simply because not enough desks were open. Being concerned about missing my flight I walked up to the desk indicating I was worried to miss my flight and was told not to worry. When it was finally my turn to check in I was told I was too late for check in and they cancelled my ticket. When confronting them with the situation that I was assured not to worry they started laughing and was also told that they would not reimburse the money - ended up flying Lufthansa instead.

TLV-RIX and RIX-AMS. Flight crew professional and efficient. We didn't try anything off the menu but it looked okay if maybe a little meager in portion size. Be careful if you're flying through/from RIX as they check all your hand luggage for size and weight.