airBaltic files for Chapter 11 with €350 million DIP financing commitment
Latvia's airBaltic filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on September 14, 2026, as part of a debt-reduction restructuring. The airline said it had secured a commitment for €350 million in debtor-in-possession financing from lenders including Strategic Value Partners, Barclays, Hayfin Capital Management, Morgan Stanley and Oaktree Capital Management. airBaltic said flights, tickets and customer services would continue during the court-supervised process.
Reuters explicitly reports that airBaltic filed for Chapter 11 protection on September 14, 2026, as part of a debt-reduction restructuring and obtained a €350 million debtor-in-possession financing commitment. This is a new, highly material, forward-looking legal and financial development because it changes creditor priority, liquidity and restructuring outcomes, while the stated continuation of flights limits the immediate operational impact. The wording has been tightened from completed financing to a financing commitment because the supporting context says airBaltic still needed court approval to draw the facility. The filing date is explicit, but the filing time is not; therefore the timestamp uses midnight UTC as a date-level proxy. The development is not a duplicate of the September 11 bondholder-meeting postponement and appropriately remains part of existing event 1413. Approved stakeholders are limited to Lufthansa Group exposure and the explicitly named public financing participants Barclays and Morgan Stanley; speculative effects on competitors, lessors, MRO providers and other secondary beneficiaries are excluded.
Latvia's airBaltic said on Monday it had filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in New York as part of a financial restructuring aimed at reducing its debt.
The company said in a statement it had secured a commitment for €350 million ($405 million) of debtor-in-possession financing from lenders including Strategic Value Partners, Barclays, Hayfin Capital Management, Morgan Stanley and Oaktree Capital Management to support its operations during the restructuring.
AirBaltic is in talks with labour unions to come to an agreement on an "adjustment in the workforce," Chief Executive Erno Hilden told Reuters on Monday after the Latvian carrier announced it was voluntarily entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
The national airline seeks court-supervised restructuring to slash its $583 million debt amid soaring fuel costs from the Iran conflict, securing €350 million in new financing from major lenders like Barclays and Oaktree to maintain operations.
the process should wrap up by June 2027 as the fleet shrinks from 54 to 36 Airbus A220s for better efficiency.