Riga Airport Passenger Numbers Continue to Grow

05.08.2021 06:01 | Latvia

Photo: Publication photo

Author: Laura Kulakova
Source: riga-airport.com

Preliminary data on Airport performance in the first seven months of this year show that in July, Riga Airport handled half as many passengers as a month before.

In July, the Airport served 297.2 thousand passengers, which is almost 140 thousand more than a month before. Consequently, the number of passengers in July has reached 36% of the 2019 indicators.

Reklāma

Almost 703 thousand passengers were handled at Riga Airport in the first seven months of 2021, and the number of passengers is still 84% lower than in the pre-Covid-19 crisis period.

The flow of transit passengers at Riga Airport is also gradually recovering – in July, the share of travellers who chose Riga as their transfer point for further trips was 26%. In total, 162.5 thousand transit passengers were served at Riga Airport this year, accounting for 23% of the total number of passengers.

Of the total number of passengers, 60.5% were carried by the national airline airBaltic, 18.2% – by the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, and 6% – by the Hungarian low-cost airline WizzAir. A total of 12 passenger carriers currently offer flights from Riga Airport.

As airlines expand their operations at Riga Airport, the route network is also expanding – this week, it is possible to travel from Riga to 86 destinations.

In July, the number of flights serviced at Riga Airport also increased – 4319 flights were handled, which is 1203 flights more than a month before. A total of 15.7 aircraft took off and landed at the Airport in the first seven months of this year, and the number of flights dropped by 68% in 2021 as compared to 2019. Of these, 9784 were passenger flights (-79% as compared to 2019), 1504 – cargo flights (+48% as compared to 2019), and 4474 – business aviation, military, technical and other types of flights (+ 110% as compared to 2019).

In July, 1924 tonnes of cargo were handled at Riga Airport; in the first seven months of 2021, a total of 14.3 thousand tonnes of cargo were handled at Riga Airport, which is 20% more than in the corresponding period of the previous year.