Airport, Good for Business, Latvia, Tourism, Transport

He underscored that the airline is always assessing the possible increase of the market capacity before increasing the number of flights, but sometimes the forecasts have been too cautious. “For example, last year we planned a growth by 20%, but the actual growth was 22%. Also this year we forecast a similar growth – 19-20%, but the present results suggest that we have been too conservative,” said Gauss.

At the same time, a 20% growth in the number of passengers is considerable, and the airline does not believe that such a growth in the Baltic states is possible in a long term.

Gauss said that, according to data of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), in 2017 there were four billion air passengers, and this number of expected to grow to 7.8 bln in 2036. IATA has a very conservative approach to forecasts, so possibly this number will be above eight billion. The biggest growth is forecast for Asia, but also Europe is to see a 70% rise by 2036.

As reported, in the first half of this year airBaltic carried 1.9 mln passengers which is by 20 % more than in the respective period last year.

airBaltic operates over 70 destinations from its home base in Riga, Latvia. From every one of these locations, airBaltic offers convenient connections via Riga to its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, CIS and the Middle East. In addition, airBaltic also offers direct flights from Tallinn and Vilnius.

The Latvian state currently owns 80% in airBaltic, and a 20% stake in the airline belongs to Aircraft Leasing 1, a company owned by Danish businessman Lars Thuesen.