Airline «Nordica»

Nordica is the brand name of Nordic Aviation Group AS. The company is an Estonian airline based in Tallinn. The airline has also been operating its own flights since August 2021.

The company was founded in autumn 2015 under the name Nordic Aviation with state support following the cessation of operations by Estonian Air. Because the company did not have an Air Operator Certificate (AOC), it initially worked closely with the Slovenian Adria Airways. Operations began on November 8, 2015, with flights operated by Adria Airways, later also by bmi regional, Trade Air, NextJet and Carpatair in wet lease.

In parallel, Nordic Aviation founded a subsidiary called Regional Jet (today Xfly). This subsidiary took delivery of its first aircraft in January 2016, a leased Bombardier CRJ700. As part of a restructuring of the group of companies, the holding company Nordic Aviation Group was formed in spring 2016, which owns the virtual companies Regional Jet and Nordic Aviation. The latter was renamed Nordica on April 1, 2016 to distinguish it from the new parent company. A new corporate identity was also developed for the virtual company. The company logo shows a dragonfly, which i.a. can also be seen on the vertical stabilizer of the aircraft.

Since then, Nordica has mainly used machines from its sister airline Regional Jet to carry out its operations. However, it continues to lease aircraft from other companies under wet leases.

At the end of June 2019, the company announced that it would discontinue its own flights on October 26 of the same year. As a reason, Nordica referred to the competition with other airlines, which makes profitable operations impossible.

On December 31, 2020, Nordica acquired LOT’s stake in Xfly and now owns 100% of the airline.

In 2021, the Estonian Transport Agency issued the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) to Nordica.

Nordica has also been offering its own flights since August 2021. The route Gällivare — Arvidjaur — Stockholm (Arlanda) was served first.

Until 26 October 2019, Nordica mainly served destinations in Northern Europe from Tallinn. In December 2021, Nordica flew from Tallinn to Stockholm, and then from Stockholm to Gällivare and Arvidsjaur.