Estonian airports served over 3 million passengers last year

Author: Tallinn-airport.ee
Source: BalticTravelnews.com/Tallinn-airport.ee

The airports operated by Tallinn Airport (Kärdla, Kuressaare, Tartu, Pärnu and Tallinn) served more than 3 million passengers in 2023. 2.96 million passengers travelled through Tallinn Airport in 2023, which is 91% of the pre-pandemic level of 2019. Compared to 2022, the number of passengers at Tallinn Airport increased by 7.8%. 63,000 passengers travelled through Kärdla, Kuressaare, Tartu and Pärnu airports.

During the year, Tallinn Airport offered direct flights to 60 destinations, 44 of which were scheduled and 16 charter flight destinations. The largest share of passengers, i.e. almost a third, flew to major hubs: Riga, Helsinki and Frankfurt. The largest number of passengers were served by airBaltic (26%) and Ryanair (16%).

Reklāma

According to Eero Pärgmäe, Member of the Management Board of Tallinn Airport, the last year was a year of stable growth. “We’ve adapted to the rapidly changing environment that has made us expect the unexpected,” said Pärgmäe. The first and last quarters of the year were very strong, the summer was a bit more modest than expected, but we’re very pleased with the year as a whole.”

airBaltic added the some new seasonal direct flights to the following destinations: Dubrovnik, Split, Rhodes and Heraklion.  SAS launched flights to Oslo. From the winter season, which started at the end of October, airBaltic added scheduled flights to Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Geneva and Tampere. The flights to Athens (Aegean Airlines) and Antalya (SunExpress), previously only offered in summer, are now taking place all year round. “The winter flight schedule made a record high number of seats available for sale, which shows that our work with airlines has been successful and our ambition to create a balanced portfolio of airlines is right for us and achievable,” said Pärgmäe to sum up the year.

News of 2024

Considering the new routes and additional frequencies already announced, a clear increase in the number of available seats is expected for the 2024 summer season (April to October), with most airlines flying to Tallinn increasing their capacity compared to last summer. Overall, the airport expects a 5% increase in passenger numbers.

“Two new airlines will start flying from Tallinn in spring:Transavia France (the budget airline of the Air France/KLM Group), which will start flying to Paris (Orly airport) twice a week from the beginning of April, and German airline Eurowings (the budget airline of the Lufthansa Group), which will offer direct flights to Prague up to four times a week from the end of March.The new direct flights of airBaltic in the summer season are Billund, Malta and Burgas. Ryanair will fly to 11 destinations during the summer season. The airline will also add frequencies to existing routes, meaning that in terms of seats, Ryanair will offer the same capacity this summer as in summer 2022,” said Pärgmäe

Regional airports in 2023 and Kärdla’s record

Regional airports served 63,000 passengers last year. The number of passengers at Kärdla Airport increased the most (by 35%), which was facilitated by the introduction of a larger aircraft on the Kärdla-Tallinn route. Kärdla Airport set an all-time record with a total of 16,200 passengers served in 2023 (12,000 passengers in 2022). Kuressaare Airport served 42,200 passengers in 2023 (39,700 in 2022), an increase of 9%. The only international scheduled service at regional airports was operated between Pärnu and Helsinki from May to August, and was used by 657 passengers. A total of 2,087 passengers travelled through Pärnu Airport last year (2,888 passengers in 2022).

Results of Tallinn Airport in December 2023

In December, 225,506 passengers travelled through Tallinn Airport, 8.5% more than in the same period last year. The strong performance was driven by an increase in the number of seats and choice of destinations. In December, direct flights from Tallinn were available on 33 scheduled routes, plus charter flights to Egypt, the Canary Islands and Sri Lanka.

In December, airBaltic launched seasonal once-weekly direct flights to Geneva, which is mainly targeted at ski holiday lovers as it offers convenient access to several European ski resorts. However, tour operator JoinUp launched a series of charter flights to Sri Lanka.

To publish this article please contact BalticTravelnews.eu editorial board

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