This January, Riga Airport handled 414.6 thousand passengers, with the number of direct passengers reaching 333 thousand or just 3.9 per cent below the indicator of the pre-pandemic period.
“The beginning of this year has been successful for Riga Airport despite the fact that the first two months of the year usually mark the quietest season for airports. Seat occupancy rates on the flights to and from Riga are high, around 70 % on average, but on certain flights to the warm destinations these rates approach 100 per cent. Forecasts of the carriers in relation to the upcoming months are stable and allow us to look at further recovery”, says Laila Odiņa, Chairperson of the Board of Riga Airport.
In January, 4 355 flights were handled at the Airport, of which 3 953 were passenger aircraft. Although, as compared to the number of aircraft handled in January 2019, the indicator this January showed a drop of one third, the number of seats offered to passengers on direct flights is just 13 % lower than in 2019, with the airlines using larger capacity aircraft for the flights from and to Riga.
Of all the passengers carried in January, 51 % flew with the national carrier “airBaltic”, but nearly 32 % – with the Irish low-cost airline “Ryanair”, which thanks to the aircraft based in Riga Airport is able to offer an attractive range of destinations at the prices available to a broad range of travellers.
The proportion of direct and transit passengers also remains stable: one fifth of the passengers use Riga Airport as a place of transfer.
