In 2020, 57% of the passengers serviced at Rīga airport were transported by the national airline airBaltic, 16% by the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair and 9% by the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air.
25% of all passengers serviced at Rīga airport last year were transfer passengers.
The most popular European destinations from Rīga last year were London, Oslo, Frankfurt and Helsinki. Despite the fact that flights to countries outside the EU have been banned since mid-March, Moscow also remains in the top 5 of last year, which was one of the most popular flight routes before the pandemic.
Compared to 2019, the number of flights operated also decreased by more than half. Last year, 35 592 flights were operated at the airport – 59.1% less than a year earlier.
In 2021, the airport plans to service 2.8 million passengers.
Laila Odiņa, Chair of the Board of Rīga airport, said in an interview to Latvian Radio that this number is currently looking quite unrealistic. “We very much hope that changes to flight rules from January 15 will stabilize the situation in the coming months, but volumes could start to be restored to at least 30-40% of 2019 levels starting May and June,” Odiņa said.
The number of cargo flights nearly doubled, while the number of business aviation, technical, military and other flights increased by 82.6%.
