Passengers boarding Latvian airline AirBaltic can now make payments with more cryptocurrency. The major options are Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and so on.
The Airline made an announcement on Monday through its website. Customers are free to make payment for flight tickets with Ethereum and Dogecoin. The Latvian Airline also accepts other digital currencies. They include Bitcoin Cash(BCH) and stablecoins; USD Coin, Binance USD, Gemini Dollar, and Paxos Standard.
airBaltic states in its statement that ticket prices will still be in euros on the website. Bitpay is the official crypto exchange platform for airBaltics. The platform automatically converts customer’s cryptocurrencies to euros for the website. The airline does not directly receive payments in cryptos. There are means of payment with other cryptocurrencies. But this depends on the type of crypto wallet the customer is using
The CEO of airBaltics, Martin Gauss, as part of the announcement, stated that;
“As an innovative airline, we always strive to search for ways to improve the customer experience starting from the booking process. Over the years around 1,000 clients have used the payment option, which may not seem like a lot, but still offers passengers a unique payment option hard to find elsewhere.”
The Latvian airlines were the first airline to adopt the use of Bitcoin as payment in 2014.
Travel industry and Crypto
Cryptocurrency is gaining ground in the travel and hospitality industry. Major airlines, travel agencies, motels, and hotels are making use of cryptocurrency. They use it as a payment option for bookings. Travel agencies like Travala have a large network of airlines and hotels that makes use of digital currency for payments.
Asides from the flight tickets and bookings, the aviation industry is making use of blockchain technology for a variety of use cases. Due to the pandemic, there is a rising need for digitalization. This is instigating a greater focus from industries to use latest technology.
