Baltic airlines have come under financial strain with increasing cost of terrorism-related insurance in the wake of the airborne attacks in the United States.

The Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian airlines scrambled to find ways to pay for higher insurance costs, with all three coming up with at least temporary solutions. They have warned though of possible rises in the cost of tickets to help foot the bill for the pricier insurance. The fully state-owned Lithuanian Airlines was discussing how it could receive government-supported insurance, something that airlines based in European Union countries have received. Latvia's national carrier, Air Baltic, got a helping hand from shareholder SAS to keep it flying—though the majority state-owned Latvian company was also trying to negotiate a permanent solution with the government. Estonia’s national airline Estonian Air has been the hardest hit, having to suspend all of its flights from Wednesday though Friday of last week because it said insurers would no longer offer sufficient coverage against terrorist attacks. It continued some flights using planes leased from its parent company, the Danish-owned Maersk Air, but most others were cancelled completely for the three-day period. But by later in the week, insurance companies reportedly did agree to offer their full 1 billion dollar terrorist coverage to Estonian Air. The partly state-owned Estonian airline has appealed to its government for an insurance guarantee of 590 million dollars, though fiscally conservative Estonian officials suggested they wouldn’t be in a position to comply with that request.