Air Baltic has confirmed it will be the launch operator for the Bombardier CS300.
Chief executive Martin Gauss tells Flightglobal the carrier expects its first delivery of the type to arrive in September 2016 and another two before the end of that year.
Gauss also confirms that Air Baltic will firm up seven options to give it 20 firm orders for the CS300, saying: "We haven't done it yet, but the long-term business plan assumes that."
He expects the aircraft will provide "much lower operating costs and longer range" and allow the Riga-based carrier to operate "a lot of routes that we cannot do at the moment".
The CS300 is on track to be certificated six months after the same milestone for the CS100, which is due by the end of this year, says Bombardier.
The larger variant seats 135 passengers in a standard two-class configuration, compared with 110 seats for the CS100 model. Air Baltic has selected a single-class high-density layout with 148 seats for its CS300s.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
