Latvian air hub celebrates new passenger traffic record

Riga International Airport has achieved a new annual passenger traffic record exceeding the threshold of 5.3 million passengers. The 5,390,000th passenger Airi Noor arrived at the Airport with a flight from Tallinn operated by the Latvian national carrier airBaltic.

Arnis Muižnieks, director of Aviation Department, Ministry of Transport: “The recent ambitious investments in the Airport infrastructure, upgrading the airfield and improving passenger service facilities, have made Riga even more attractive to both airlines and travellers. Airport development is closely linked to the growth of the national airline airBaltic, which this year carried more than half of the passengers of Riga Airport.”

Martin Gauss, CEO of airBaltic, commented: “airBaltic fleet expansion with new, larger aircraft means that in 2017 we will be able to offer 16% more tickets, since the number of seats to be sold will increase. airBaltic will fly more often to European airports, while in the most popular routes such as Copenhagen-Riga we will use a larger jet aircraft which will replace the turboprop plane. Thus, we expect that the improved airBaltic service next year will allow us to increase the number of customers”.

Riga International Airport reached its first million of passengers on 13 December 2004. Two years later, on 17 October 2006, the Airport greeted its two-millionth passenger; a year later the Airport served 3 million passengers, while in 2009 – already four million. Riga International Airport welcomed its five-millionth passenger on 21 December 2011, while last year the Airport handled 5.16 million passengers.