Air Baltic

My pregnant wife and son were traveling in Europe and after making us pay huge baggage fees, Air Baltic held us up at the desk for almost two hours.

When we got to the gate to load into our plane, the front desk agent came and told us to check our email and that we owed more money. There was an email bill for almost $1800 Euros that they said we had to pay otherwise we could not get on the plane. They would not tell us what it was for and when we said we weren’t going to pay it, they refused to let us on our flight. We were stranded in Finland and had to purchase new tickets on FinnAir (who were very nice and charged us NOTHING).

The same agent is the one who escorted to baggage claim and left us there. As he was leaving he told us he didn’t even work for Air Baltic. This means we never actually spoke with an actual Air Baltic employee! We asked for a supervisor many times but they never came.

Air Baltic has refused to give us our money back for tickets or baggage.

Business Class in Air Baltic from Brussels to Riga in their Bombardier C series. Not a a business class. 3 abreast Economy seats with the middle seat blocked out.

Return flight also business class on a worn out old 737-500, again no actual business class seats. Economy arrangement with middle seat blocked out

Cabin crew on both flights were courteous and friendly. Food and drink quality and selection fair. Flights were on time
An acceptable services of a budget carrier, although as a business flyer, the value was not so good

Very disappointed with the gate control in the Riga airport. The most unwelcoming and humiliating experience in my whole life. Also very non-friendly for musicians. Demand, that a small instrument, such as violin should be charged 60 euros and then taken to the hold, with the gate controls knowledge, that the flight is half empty is just pathetic and sad. Not to mention that the attitude is just below any normal and respectable manner towards the clients. No other airline does these kind of things. VERY HUMILIATING and SAD EXPERIENCE.

Avoid at any cost
Booked a flight early to Moscow and was supposed to take the Transiberian 7 days.Unfortunately they “lost” my luggage and did not offer ANY help (oh 10 Euro per day without my luggage)
They do not even know where it is?
AVOID

This is a followup to my August 27, 2019 review of BalticAir. since that review I have been contacted by the airline and was instructed to take the damaged luggage to repair store here in San diego, California and send the opinion of that business back to Baltic Air. I did so in early September and sent the requested statement from the repair shop indicating that baggage could not be repaired and requesting further instructions or info from the airline. As of this date, September 25, 2019 I have not heard anything back from the airline, despite email requests for them to come to some resolution and contact me. Given that my initial review of 1 out of 10 still stands, as does my advice to avoid this airline like the plague