Latvian airline airBaltic will now accept a wider range of cryptocurrencies for payment, Simple Flying reports. According to the source, the airline was the first to start accepting Bitcoin as a payment method back in 2014. Now, customers of the company will be able to pay for products and services in other crypto assets. These include Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and four stablecoins, including Gemini Dollar (GUSD), USD Coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD), and Paxos Standard Token (PAX). The move was possible thanks to the partnership with BitPay.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment methods are gaining wider acceptance in the travel industry. Travel booking website Travala.com accepts over 30 types of cryptocurrencies for products and services on its website. It has recently become the first merchant to integrate with Binance’s payment technology Binance Pay. In addition, using Travala, users can also book over 700,000 hotels from Expedia Group.
However, the use of crypto for payments among airlines is still not widespread. Apart from airBaltic, LOT Polish Airlines also accepts payments in Bitcoin since 2015. Norwegian Air also revealed in 2020 that the crypto trading platform Norwegian Block Exchange (NBX) developed a payment infrastructure to allow airline customers to pay with digital currencies.
