Airport, Good for Business, Latvia, Tourism, Transport

Of the total number of passengers, 53.3% were carried by the Latvian national airline airBaltic, 15.7% by the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair, and 9.1% by the Hungarian low-cost carrier WizzAir.

The most popular destinations from Riga in 2017 were London, Moscow and Frankfurt. The most popular transit destinations travelling via Riga Airport were Tallinn, Vilnius, Moscow, Helsinki and St. Petersburg.

Ilona Lice, CEO of Riga International Airport, said that she was particularly pleased with the steep growth in the number of transit passengers which had increased by nearly 40% in December 2017 or the highest rate last year.

On average, transit passengers made up 29% of all passengers in the Riga airport in 2017, growing more than 20% from 2016, and the number of direct passengers increased 11.6%.

"The aviation industry is showing growth also in the region. The number of passengers in the Baltic airports increased 12.5% last year, reaching 13.7 million," Lice said.

In 2017, the largest monthly number of passengers in the Riga airport was registered in July - 646,268, and the average monthly number was more than half a million passengers.

Cargo handling at the Riga airport increased 29.2% last year, accounting for 51% of the Baltic air freight market.

Riga International Airport is the largest air traffic hub in the Baltics, servicing 44% of the air passengers in the Baltic states. The 16 airlines operating at the Riga airport offer flights to 60 destinations in the winter season and to nearly 90 destinations in the summer season.