Airport, Good for Business, Latvia, Tourism, Transport

The number of transit and transfer passengers in January-August this year increased 18% year-on-year to nearly 1.2 million or almost one-third of the total number of passengers.

In the first eight months of this year the airport also received 489,012 aircraft, up 8% from the same period in 2016. The average monthly number is over 6,000 aircraft.

The leading carrier at the Riga airport is the Latvian national airline airBaltic with a 53.5% share of total passengers. The market share of the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair is 15%, and the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizzair carried 8.8% of the airport's passengers.

Freight transportation grew 10% year-on-year to some 14,400 tons in the first eight months of this year.

The airport's spokeswoman, Laura Karnite, said that, according to the data of Airports Council International (ACI), with the 16.2% growth of passengers in July, Riga has become one of the five fastest-growing airports in Europe in the group of the airports serving 5-10 million passengers annually.

Passenger growth in the Riga airport is well above the European average which was 9.6% in July, according to ACI, and also higher than the average growth in the group of the airports serving 5-10 million passengers annually, which was 10.2% in July this year.

The state-owned Riga International Airport is the largest air traffic hub in the Baltic states. The airport offers flights to more than 60 destinations in the winter season and to nearly 90 destinations in summer, operated by 20 airlines.

In 2016, Riga Airport handled over 5.4 million passengers, or nearly 45% of all air passengers in the Baltic states.