Taskila working as consultant and lecturer

Tero Taskila, sacked from the position of Estonian Air CEO last month, says he is staying in Estonia and has taken up work as a consultant and lecturer. "I am doing contract work for air carriers,“ Taskila told the Finnish newspaper Taloussanomat. "In addition, I am giving lectures at a London university on aviation management and strategy."

Postimees reported last week that Taskila, who moved to Estonia with his family in 2011 when he took the Estonian Air position, plans to remain in the country. In October, Estonian Air revealed a third quarter loss of 20 million euros. Taskila was dismissed on the same day. He received severance pay of almost 100,000 euros.

Last year, the national air carrier had a total loss of 17.3 million euros – the worst in the company's history. Estonian Air's supervisory board resigned, although the economy minister has said he would prefer to re-hire the board's chairman, Erkki Raasuke, who had only held his position for a short time before stepping down. The new supervisory board will be determined in the coming days.

Jan Palmer has taken over as CEO, amidst Raasuke's announcement of plans to cut employees, flights and routes.

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Estonian Air to fire staff and cut flights to avoid insolvency

Estonian Air will fire almost half of its employees and reduce flights to 10 or fewer destinations as the Baltic nation’s national carrier seeks to avoid insolvency.

“The structure of the company will be based on operating five aircraft and serving nine to 10 core destinations,” Chief Executive Officer Jan Palmer said today on the company’s website. “Cutbacks in the flight volumes unfortunately lead to operating with a smaller number of employees.”

The company, which is 97.3 percent owned by the Estonian government, will dismiss 146 of its current 318 employees, it said. Of the remaining 172, 100 will be flight crew. Estonian Air fired Chief Executive Officer Tero Taskila on Oct. 31, after its nine-month net loss widened to 20.2 million euros from 11.2 million euros a year earlier.

Bryan Bradley