Nordic files for bankruptcy
November 21, 2024
Nordic Aviation Group, established in 2015, and operating as Nordica and its subsidiary Xfly (Estonia), announced that it would file for bankruptcy “at the earliest opportunity” after prospective investor Lars Thuesen (the owner of Jettime and a 2% shareholder in airBaltic) decided that that he could not proceed with the planned purchase, citing excessive risks.
Thuesen said that he had decided to abandon his attempt to buy Nordica/Xfly, because there were too many risks facing the company and too little time to solve them. Thuesen observed that Nordica and Xfly were “good companies” and said that the past 12-18 months had seen “a lot of positive things.” He pointed out that losing 90% of revenue (the SAS contract) had effectively killed the deal, despite efforts by the management and the Estonian government to find creative solutions.
Nordica was an Estonian state-owned carrier, while Xfly operated as a provider of Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance (ACMI) operations, with SAS as its biggest customer. When SAS decided to cancel its contract with Xfly and sign a contract with BRA, the impact on Xfly was catastrophic.
The Nordic Aviation Group fleet consisted of six ATR72-600s leased from Nordic Aviation Capital (five aircraft) and Chorus Aviation (the other aircraft), one Airbus A320-200 leased from Avolon, and eight CRJ900s. One of these was directly owned by Xfly and seven by the state through Transpordi Varahaldus.
Of these, the A320 was wet-leased to Bamboo Airways, and two CRJ900s were wet lease to Widerøe and one to SAS Scandinavian Airlines. All three aircraft flew back to Tallinn Lennart Meri on 19 November.
