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The number represents an increase of 2.4% on the previous year.

"The goal we set was 30,000 passengers, that was fulfilled," the airport's manager Argo Annuk said. "We had even higher expectations. The ambition at the beginning of the year was to reach 31,000 passengers," he said.

The increase was not a result of better performance of the Finnair service between Tartu and Helsinki, the sole air link to Tartu, but of charter flights and eight Nordica flights that landed in Tartu as a result of repairs at Tallinn Airport.

These other flights brought to the airport of Tartu 1,500 passengers, 5.2% of the total number served during the year. Passengers of Finnair made up 94.8% of the total, numbering about 600 fewer than in 2016.

Finnair's winter schedule of flights will be valid until the end of March. Under the summer flight schedule, the Finnish carrier flies to Tartu six times a week instead of seven.

"The number of passengers could have been bigger. The expectation was that flight times will get better, but this did not happen, and it definitely had an impact. On some Wednesdays and Mondays the plane was half-empty," Annuk said.

In 2018, the airport expects to increase passenger numbers, introduce a second destination and upgrade its infrastructure, first of all the perimeter fence.