Airport, Elections, Good for Business, Tourism, Transport

Eero Pargmae, chief commercial officer (CCO) of Tallinn Airport, said that the result is to be expected as several business routes, like Copenhagen and Milan, were temporarily suspended in July. The average passenger load factor on regular flights rose to a record 81%.

"Regardless of the relatively warm summer weather in Estonia, passengers' demand for summer holiday trips has remained very strong and the average passenger load factor has reached a record high. With the summer, airBaltic has snatched up a lot more of the market share and increased it 7% compared with the start of the year," Pargmae said in a press release.

The largest carrier, Latvian state airline airBaltic, served 24%, Nordica 15% and Ryanair 10% of passengers in July. Altogether 20% of all passengers traveled with low-cost airlines.

In July, there were direct flights on 36 regular routes added to which were 25 charter flight destinations. A large part of regular traffic has been distributed between main connecting hubs, like Helsinki, Riga, Frankfurt and Stockholm. Regular flights on business routes, which were suspended in July for regular maintenance, will be restored again in August. Of the charter flight destinations, the most popular were resorts in Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece.

Summer passenger number records are testing the throughput of the airport's terminal. "In order to avoid delays and a stressful start to the journey, each passenger can help along by arriving at the airport with enough time to spare to hand off their luggage and go through security," Pargmae said.

The airport of Tartu, second largest city of Estonia, also saw a record number of passengers in July, 2,257 passengers, which is 429 passengers more than in July 2018.