Nordica, legally incorporated as Nordic Aviation Group AS, is the state-owned Estonian flag carrier headquartered in Tallinn, and based at Tallinn Airport. It operates scheduled flights as well as on wetlease contracts on behalf of other airlines.
History
The company was founded on 25 September 2015 by the decision of the Estonian Government, following the bankruptcy and liquidation of the previous national carrier, Estonian Air. It reuses the IATA code and callsign of Aero Airlines, which itself ceased operations early 2008. Operations started on 8 November 2015. Its first flight left Tallinn for Amsterdam on 8 November 2015, the first flight with Estonian service on the same route was on 20 January 2016. On 30 March 2016, the new brand name Nordica was announced. Erik Sakkov, previous board member of the company, explained the airline's naming with Estonia's alignment with Northern Europe and with country's leaders wish to reflect it in the name of the national carrier. He also noted that Nordica is logical follow-up to its previous name, Nordic Aviation Group. In the first year, Slovenian Adria Airways operated most of Nordica's flights while Nordica built up its fleet and crew. 19 November 2016 Nordica entered into a strategic partnership with LOT Polish Airlines, using the latter's commercial platform, ticketing system and flight code. Since most of the flights are marketed by LOT Polish Airlines, which owns 49% of the shares and is a member of Star Alliance, Nordica also carries LOT's flight codes and callsign on most of its flights. Through its subsidiary Regional Jet in a partnership with Scandinavian Airlines, Regional Jet operates six ATR72-600s between Scandinavian and other Northern European destinations. In March 2018, Nordica opened a base at Groningen Airport Eelde, in the north of the Netherlands. The base served four routes: to Copenhagen and Munich throughout the year and Ibiza and Nice in the summer. In November 2018, Nordica announced it would shut down eight of its routes from Tallinn Airport effective from the summer schedule 2019. Additionally, the carrier closed its base in Groningen by 29 December 2018. In June 2019, Nordica announced it would terminate all remaining scheduled operations from its home base in Tallinn as well. While few key routes will be taken over by its partner LOT Polish Airlines, Nordica will focus its services on leasing operations for other airlines. In February 2020, Regional Jet announced it is rebranded as XFly. Furthermore, an additional seven Embraer 190/195 will be leased to expand operations.
Destinations
As of October 2017, Nordica served several cities mainly throughout Central, Northern and Western Europe.
