First airline to accept Bitcoin for payment - AirBaltic

[Sheldor333]

Link to tweet: https://twitter.com/airBaltic/status/491148581907095552

The transaction fee is a bit of a downer, at least it's same fee for Credit card use and Bitcoin. Probably some ridiculous fee the charge to everyone unless you use their card.

Edit: Fee removed, as it can be seen here: https://i.imgur.com/Ley8aWV.png

[Cryptopher]

Hmmm the transaction fee is wrong. Some chatter on Reddit was saying how it's actually an 'administrative fee', but confusingly labelled as a transaction fee.

Surely AirBaltic actually mean administrative fee, as by paying Credit Card for instance will likely incur what most would be familiar with as a transaction fee.

If they re-worded it across all options then it likely wouldn't seem so bad. Anyway, the fee amount stands.

[Seanzqt]

People should just to the fact that they accept bitcoin, isn't this what we all want?

[gabbello]

All low-cost companies present as "transaction/payment charges" fees which are actually just extra costs that they add to the ticket (for various payment options).

In bitcoin case (since this is not a payment method known by most of the public) this can create some (bad) confusion.

Reality is that until someone starts selling products for BTC at a lower price (for the end user) than via standard methods (and they can do this due to less fees than using CC for example) only enthusiasts will use bitcoin to buy stuff.

Keep in mind that for 90% of us buying bitcoins (with fiat) already has some fees added (due to exchanges) so there is no reason to exchange 100 USD in BTC worth of 97USD and then purchase a product using those BTC (- small transaction fee) if the product values 97USD (it means that I just spent 100 USD for a product that worths a bit under 97USD just for the sake of using bitcoin)

[MannyEric]

It's a low-cost airline, they charge for pretty much everything. Still good news, they took BTC on board...

[karlb187]

good news..good news. 

We need more to do the same!

[TaunSew]

I've flown on air baltic and yeah I recall them tacking on all sorts of miscellaneous fees.  There's a lot of low cost air lines where, if you check a bag, that's an extra $50 they tack on.

[haploid23]

I was under the impression that Virgin Galactic was the first to accept btc. Not sure if they are considered an airline though.

[abacus]

Does anyone know the annual revenues of AirBaltic?
Is it bigger/smaller than other companies already accepting bitcoin?

[MannyEric]

Does anyone know the annual revenues of AirBaltic?
Is it bigger/smaller than other companies already accepting bitcoin?

airBaltic is a rather small company. It operates mostly in the Central/Eastern European region connecting many European cities with Riga International Airport, Latvia (RIX). They've had some really hard financial difficulties recently, but European Commission showed them green light to use financial aid from Latvian government.
more info from their homepage https://www.airbaltic.com/en/index

[Hero0o]

This is amazing. lol

[Sindelar1938]

It's a start, the slight disconnect around tx fees notwithstanding
The average user of AirBaltis is likely not the usual cryptocionado demographic, so that's a mainstreaming aspect as well

[abacus]

Does anyone know the annual revenues of AirBaltic?
Is it bigger/smaller than other companies already accepting bitcoin?

airBaltic is a rather small company. It operates mostly in the Central/Eastern European region connecting many European cities with Riga International Airport, Latvia (RIX). They've had some really hard financial difficulties recently, but European Commission showed them green light to use financial aid from Latvian government.
more info from their homepage https://www.airbaltic.com/en/index

Pretty exaustive, thank you.
From your link:

The primary shareholder is the Latvian state with 99.8% of stock.
In 2013 airBaltic carried over 2.95 million passengers.
The airBaltic fleet currently consists of 25 aircraft – five Boeing 737-500, eight Boeing 737-300 and twelve Bombardier Q400Next Gen.

Talking about annual revenues, does someone think we could argue that it's smaller than Dell, or not?

[TaunSew]

It's a start, the slight disconnect around tx fees notwithstanding
The average user of AirBaltis is likely not the usual cryptocionado demographic, so that's a mainstreaming aspect as well

Governments and merchants seem to think crypto currencies will be $1+ trillion plus within years, so may as well get on the band wagon.

Problem is that Wall Street and main street hasn't exactly jumped on board yet.  Wall street generally doesn't like throwing money at things with 'low volume' (low for them) and lack of regulations.  Many people on mainstreet don't understand Bitcoin yet.

Tom Leykis on the radio was talking about Bitcoin this last friday and he absolutely hates Bitcoin due to Satoshi's anonymity, Bitcoin not representing anything and volatility (his words not mine) and compared it with Tulips.

[MannyEric]

Talking about annual revenues, does someone think we could argue that it's smaller than Dell, or not?

airBaltic 2013 revenue €325 million
Dell 2013 revenue $56.9 billion

No comparison here, is it?

[djarot]

what great news! this fee is a little strange and maybe sends wrong impression of cheapness of bitcoin payment, but.... this fees from airlines is getting old - easyjet carrier stopped adding them and included in ticket price, which is less confusing. So i guess in future other carriers will do the same, so not a major issue to bother about. very cool news! a good advantage too - now you can book flights from foreign country to home country, without using home credit card to pay for ticket in foreign currency and getting charged fee by your bank! normally you cannot change currency of ticket price if ticket is not originating in your country of residence. 

[DjPxH]

Talking about annual revenues, does someone think we could argue that it's smaller than Dell, or not?

airBaltic 2013 revenue €325 million
Dell 2013 revenue $56.9 billion

No comparison here, is it?

Ha, so a company now needs to exceed multiple billions of USD in revenue in order to be a good thing for bitcoin's growth
Hey, on the other side... if it it true, look how far we've already come!

[factor280]

Excellent! Another victory for Bitcoin!

[Ilsk]

Good news anyway.

[DjPxH]

Good news anyway.

Which is something rather rare when it comes to new people proclaim as 'good news'
Bitcoin news are like the professor from Futurama. Even bad news are being re-casted as "This is actually good news"