Wednesday 14 February, SCCE gathered for a Business Breakfast at the Ambassador's Residence at the Embassy of Sweden. Headlined Connecting Estonia, the Business Breakfast focused on flight connections between Estonia and Sweden as well as other countries of importance for our business community.

- 2017 was a remarkably good year for Tallinn Airport. The total number of passengers was 2.648.361, which corresponds to a 19% increase compared to 2016, said Piret Mürk-Dubout, Chairman of the Board and CEO at Tallinn Airport.

- Among the 34 international destinations served with direct flights in 2017, London was the biggest in passenger numbers followed by Stockholm as the second biggest.

- As for this year, the number of available seats will grow and Tallinn will have direct flight connections to 40 international destinations, concluded Piret Mürk-Dubout.

- Fully owned by the Estonian State, Nordica is responsible for all commercial activities for LO8000 series flights, while items like slot management, international relations, ground handling and fueling contracts are done by LOT Polish Airlines under Nordica supervision, explained Ahto Pärl, Nordica’s CFO.

- In December 2015, Regional Jet was created as subsidiary to Nordica providing ACMI services (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, Insurance). Today, the company is owned to 51% by Nordica and 49% by LOT. By the end of this year, Regional Jet is expected to operate 19 aircraft, 8 of them operating on Nordica’s network, 4 on LOT’s network, 4 for SAS, 1 managed on wetlease basis and 2 aircraft dedicated as back-up capacity.

- Nordica is the largest air carrier in Estonia and also one of the fastest growing airlines in Northern Europe connecting Tallinn with direct flights to 21 major European destinations, concluded Ahto Pärl.

- In addition to our flights from Tallinn to Stockholm and Copenhagen, SAS also has a call center in Estonia for the European and US markets, said Ruta Juciene, SAS' Country Manager Baltic States & Russia.

- In total, SAS operates 158 aircraft to 123 destinations. Our flights from Tallinn to Stockholm and Copenhagen take our passengers to two important hubs in SAS’ network. Our share of departures at Stockholm-Arlanda is 47% and at Copenhagen-Kastrup 42%, concluded Ruta Juciene.

On behalf of the SCCE, I would like to thank Piret, Ahto and Ruta for their interesting presentations. My thanks also go to Ambassador Anders Ljunggren and the Embassy of Sweden for an excellent set up and a fantastic Business Breakfast.

Sincerely,

Kristiina Sikk - SCCE Ombudsman