SK989

According to media in Estonia, OV (Estonian air) will open a new route ARN - URE (Kuressaare, island of Ösel) - TLL in codeshare with SAS beginning this autumn. OV will lease/buy a SAAB 340 to use for this route. The new aircraft will also be used for a new route between Tallinn and S:t Petersburg, which for some reason isn't served by any airline at all today. It doesn't say whether the route will be operated with C/Y/M, Y/M or just M.

Today ARN-URE is served by Skyways, but although it is a normal scheduled service it is not possible to earn EB points on that route with Skyways. The reason why is, according to SAS, "that Skyways has no such agreement with Eurobonus". When OV will operate the route things will likely change and it'll probarbly be possible to redeem and earn EB points between ARN and URE. It is quite a nice place to visit during summer and I'd say it's worth 12 000 points for a bonus trip.

dabee69

There's RIX-URE already available for a while on BT, check www.airbaltic.com. It is certainly available for points, also in C. I would assume no food served as in similar routes RIX-TLL/VNO in C.


Outbound flights Riga (RIX) - Kuressaare (URE) Monday, August 6, 2007
Operating days From To Dept. Arr. Flight No Stops Equipment Via Duration
- - - - - Sa - RIX URE 07:35 08:15 BT 319 0 Fokker 50 - 0:40
- - - Th - - - RIX URE 16:25 17:05 BT 319 0 Fokker 50 - 0:40
- - - - - - Su RIX URE 17:00 17:40 BT 319 0 Fokker 50 - 0:40

RIX = Riga, URE = Kuressaare

fokker50

Another new route for OV will be TLL-HEL and they have plan to open TLL-MSQ with Saab 340

SK989

Interesting that BT flies RIX-URE, didn't know that. The times aren't very good however, if you connect from ARN. If you don't want to have a transfer time of about 8 hours in RIX on the outbound journey, you would have to combine a SK/BT award (the SK flight ARN-RIX would be good for connecting to the afternoon flight RIX-URE). Unfortunately that would double the amount of points needed, since you can't combine SK/BT on a single award.

FlyingFinn

And in a surprise move starting from 24.9.2007 OV will re-open the HEL-TLL route. This will be operated three times daily on weekdays and twice daily on weekends. Equipment will be the leased Saab 340.

This is already bookable on Estonian's website, prices are starting from 29 EUR one way + 10/14 EUR in taxes and fees. Which matches exactly the FC's lowest one way fare - pure coincidence of course .

This could get interesting as AY (+EE/FC) have enjoyed their monopoly on this route for years and I'm pretty sure won't give out ground that easily.

Official announcement at: http://www.estonian-air.ee/index.php?id=25650

Helsinki Flyer

Who are they targeting on TLL-HEL? Estonians connecting to Blue1´s European and domestic flights? Businessmen take the ferries. In summer the travel time is about 90 minutes and with Tallink´s new ship 120 in the winter as well.

FlyingFinn

Yep, this is quite interesting as the service is not currently code shared at all (SK and KF would be good choices) and OV does not really offer any through ticketing - operating purely on a point-to-point basis (at least from their website you cannot book any other way).

I travel regularly (once or twice per month) to our Tallinn office and would definitely prefer flying as opposed to the boat. Since I live 10 minutes away from the airport, but 50 minutes away from the ferry terminals the choice is quite obvious . Maybe this will result in a price war that helps me to convince the bean counters to opt for flying...

SK989

OV does have through ticketing, however it's not possible to book that on their website. OV's website is rather limited, you can't even book OV codeshare on SAS flights on e.g. ARN-TLL using OV's website. In other words, if you'd like a full option on flights ARN-TLL you have to use SAS's website which also lists OV-flights under SK-codeshare. The prices ARN-TLL are usually better using SK-codeshare than booking the flights on OV-prefix.

jfidler

The TLL-HEL and TLL-VNO flights started today.

Here's the very interesting part from the press release on OV's site:
http://www.estonian-air.ee/index.php?id=25969

All flights are operated with one service class with the service level depending on the destination. Flights from Tallinn to Vilnius and from Kuressaare to Stockholm include meal service, while flights from Tallinn to Helsinki and Kuressaare do not include meal service due to the short flight time.

I went on their site to look at tickets for TLL-VNO, and they sell all 3 types of classes (C, Y, P-class) for the flight.

OV has in the past followed SK's lead with regards to service levels (like the P-class thing). Are there single-class SK intra-European flights where meal service is included? Is OV being the "trailblazer" in this area?

Well, my hopes are not high. The OV/BT merger will eventually take place, and I'm sure all decisions will come from the BT folks.

FlyingFinn

I'm doing a HEL-TLL-HEL return tomorrow on the Saab. I'll report back on my experiences.

Interestingly even my paper tickets (come on, where's the e-stonia that the Estonians always boast about) reads "operated by Golden Air".

Saw the Saab in TLL a couple of weeks ago, looks really neat in OV colours.

miikka

Sounds funny, how did they got that printed on the tickets. Has Golden Air ever operated for them?

FlyingFinn

Well the Saab 340 operating these new flights is actually owned by DC and leased by OV - at least the flight crew is from DC, dunno about the cabin crew (which I highly doubt) - so in that sense it is correct.

BTW speaking of oddball routes BT announced a new route RIX-OUL three times a week on Fokkers! They must be trying to copy FR's success on TMP-RIX.

miikka

And isn't DC somehow related to FC (e.g., if you go to goldenair.fi you end up to fc.fi), which then is related to AY (AY codesharing with FC in domestic routes in Finland)? Just funny relationship chain.

FlyingFinn

Yes, there's some sort of relationship definitely. DC is a Swedish company, and it used to operate the thin domestic routes for AY for some years. Originally these were operated under the DC flight number (and codeshared with AY I think). I don't know how the co-operation was set up, but at least the actual planes were owned by DC and the cabin crew employed by FC. Dunno about the flight crew, but I think they were Swedish DC employees. I think that at the peak there were something like 10 Saabs flying in Finland.

A few years back the DC flight number was ditched, replaced with FC - but everything else seemed to stay intact. Then when FC started getting the new ATR planes the co-operation was reduced, and eventually all the Saabs will be gone. At the moment there are still 3 remaining.

DC does a lot of wet and dryleases for various companies in the Nordics.

See www.goldenair.se for some more information.

jfidler

Yeah, they are taking forever with the e-tickets. The ticket agents at the ticket office in downtown Tallinn received training on e-tickets more than a year ago. Last time I was at the OV ticket office (2 weeks ago), the guy there indicated it would be next Spring when their e-tickets are finally ready. The IATA deadline is some time in the middle of next year, so they are cutting it close.

Justin