AirBaltic president meets demands on income declaration

  • 2010-01-06
  • Staff and wire reports

All smiles as Bertolt Flick gets back to business.

RIGA - As the year-end deadline to hand in his official state income declaration to the State Revenue Service closed in, airBaltic President Bertolt Flick finally fell in line and delivered the document, by post, to the state office on Dec. 29. The State Revenue Service had been left waiting till the last minute in what seemed to be a test of whether the airline president would agree to abide by the laws of Latvia.

The Revenue Service’s position had been that, in accordance with a ruling by the Administrative Regional Court, Flick was considered a state official, since he was an airBaltic board member and therefore a public servant. This would require him to hand in an income declaration. AirBaltic is 52.6 percent Latvian state-owned.
Failure to hand in an income declaration could be punishable by up to a two year prison sentence.
Flick has continually maintained that he was not accountable as a ‘state official,’ and that information about airBaltic salaries, the company’s contracts and such was confidential information and must not be made public, reported news agency LETA.

In late December airBaltic’s board was restructured leaving airBaltic board members with only executive functions. Until this change, persons elected to the board - the board chairman and three board members - were simultaneously carrying out duties of the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operations officer and chief commercial officer. The restructuring terminated these individuals’ roles on the board.

Flick is now responsible for carrying out the duties of president and CEO; Martins Antonovics - chief financial officer; Laila Odina - chief operations officer; Tero Taskila - chief commercial officer. The goal of the reorganization, officially, was to ensure more efficient management of the airline, said the airline’s Vice President Janis Vanags.
The State Revenue Service said that the changes with the board, however, did not exempt Flick from having to hand in his income declaration, along with a list of all state officials working at the company.
Flick’s income declaration shows that he was paid 240,000 lats (342,800 euros) in salary in 2009. He was also paid 21,629 lats in apartment compensation, and received a 30,000 lats insurance policy from airBaltic last year. Flick was paid 2,160 lats in salary at the company Baltic Airlines last year.

The declaration shows that he has debts of 14 million lats in total.
The airline president holds 9,000 lats in a Swedbank account, 110,000 euros in an account at Germany’s SEB bank, and 10,000 euros in an account at the German bank Sparkasse Pirkasens.

Flick’s income declaration states that last year he worked as Baltic Airlines board chairman, also as chairman of the board at Riga Tourism Development Bureau and Iedvesmas Riga association; he was on the Latvian National Opera Fund board, Latvian National Opera Consultative Council, and was involved in the Deutsche Baltische Handelskammer in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
Flick owns an apartment in Berlin and rents an apartment in Riga. He also owns 19,307 shares in the company Baltijas Aviacijas sistemas worth 19,307 lats, and drives a modest 2007 Audi A6.

AirBaltic reported a loss of 27.8 million lats for 2008. Baltic Aviation Systems, which is controlled by Flick, owns 47.2 percent of airBaltic.