Development since 2010
In 2010, Estonian Air started cooperation with KLM, announcing the new Tallinn–Vilnius–Amsterdam route (starting from 12 February 2010).[8]
Estonian Air started operating flights to Trondheim 5 September 2011, with 5 weekly flights.[9] In November 2011, Estonian Air announced reopening flights to Riga, 17 weekly flights starting from 25 March 2012, and to Helsinki, 18 flights weekly starting from 26 March 2012.[10] As well as opening flights to Vienna, 6 weekly starting from 25 March 2012, and to Hannover, 6 weekly flights starting from 2 April 2012.[11] It also announced increased flights to Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Vilnius starting from March 2012[10] and add extra flights on the Tallinn-Moscow route during the December 2011 holidays.[12]
As of 10 May 2010, the government of Estonia and SAS Scandinavian Airlines have agreed to a transaction where the Estonian government provides an additional 21 million EUR in capital to Estonian Air resulting in the stake of SAS in the carrier to decrease from 49% to 10%. At the same time, the two parties have agreed that the Estonian government gets an option to buy the remaining 10% stake from SAS at a later time between then and 2014. Estonian Air and SAS Scandinavian Airlines will continue to cooperate in the same fashion for the time being.[13][14] The short-term aim of the government is to become a leading shareholder and to invest in the company to ensure its future, as Estonian Air is strategically important to the state. In September 2010, Estonian Air announced that they have finally signed an agreement with Bombardier, in which two CRJ-900 NextGen aircraft are going to be delivered in the beginning of 2011 (both planes were delivered in January 2011), and a third one in 2012.[15][16] The agreement with SAS Scandinavian Airlines was signed on 10 September 2010[17] and it took effect on 27 October 2010 when the Estonian Parliament ratified the 2010 state budget modifications, allocating needed funds for investment.
Estonian Air's new CEO and former AirBaltic chief commercial officer Tero Taskila expected the company to be profitable by 2012 after losing money since 2005. According to Taskila, the company already took a big step late in 2011 by clearing up its messy leadership issues.[19] After further poor financial results in 2012, the government of Estonia decided to fire CEO Tero Taskila. From 1 November 2012, the new CEO was Jan Palmér, who has had over 20 years of experience with different airlines in Scandinavia. Estonian Air Regional was closed down in 2013.
