Odina will work until a new board chairperson will be selected in a tender.
Riga Airport supervisory board chaiman Juris Kanels said "An energetic, knowing and experienced person is needed who will be able to lead the company out of the crisis. The airport will never be the same as it was, and recovery of the company will be started from the very beginning. I am sure that Odina is the most appropriate candidate for the position until the new board chairman is selected."
Odina has long-term experience in the aviation sector, including in international companies. She has been working at the supervisory board of the company since April 2018. Before that she worked in Latvian national airline airBaltic, UTAir Airlines, and Azerbaijan Airlines. Odina also is a board member at the Transport and Telecommunication Institute.
Previous CEO of International Airport Riga, Ilona Lice, has decided to resign for health reasons.
Lice said that since the state of emergency was declared in Latvia, the airport team has been working hard to support medical personnel in implementing epidemiological security measures at the airport and ensure the airport's operations for repatriation and other authorized flights, as well as to optimize financial resources for crisis management and develop a post-crisis recovery plan for the company.
Lice believes that the first stage of overcoming the crisis has now been completed and everything necessary for "wintering" of the company and ensuring its future development has been done.
Lice had been working at the Riga Airport since 2011, when she became a member of the company's board.
Last year, Riga Airport served 7.798 million passengers, which is 10.5 percent more than in 2018, however the coronavirus emergency has stopped several years of impressive growth.
In order to control the spread of the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19, the Latvian government has declared a state of emergency until 12 May, including travel restrictions and the suspension of international passenger traffic.
