Airport, Estonia, Tourism, Transport

"The number of passengers has decreased over the years. For example, in 2012 we had 5,600 passengers," Parnu airport manager Erki Teemagi said.

There were only three chartered flights in 2017, which were conducted with the Finns' DC-3 aircraft. "This is the only larger aircraft that can come to such a short runway. It fits approximately 18 passengers," Teemagi said.

He said that the reason for the decrease in the number of flights and passengers is the shortening of the runway from 2,480 meters to 800 meters and the cancellation of regular flights to the island of Kihnu. Altogether 1,066 flight operations were registered last year at Parnu airport. These include takeoffs, landings and overflights.

The 839 passengers in 2017 however do not indicate the real number of people who passed through the airport as they are counted starting from aircraft with a landing weight of at least 2,700 kilograms. Therefore, a couple of private planes are not reflected in these statistics.

Teemagi said that aircraft arrive mostly from Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where they are originally from or if an intermediate stop is made here. There have been aircraft that landed in Parnu, which had started from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark.

Parnu airport now has hope for a brighter future. The state, the City of Parnu and the state-owned airport company AS Tallinna Lennujaam (Tallinn Airport) in October signed an agreement for a thorough overhaul of the airport. Altogether 20 million euros will be allocated from the state budget in 2018-2020 for the reconstruction of Parnu airport.

The City of Parnu also agreed to partly cover the maintenance costs of the reconstructed airport. "We will start the reconstruction of the airport this year. A start has been made and we are waiting for design criteria from the rural municipality of Tori," Teemagi said.

Lauri Luur, mayor of the rural municipality of Tori, said that the rural municipality government endorsed the design criteria at a sitting and will send them to the airport in the next few days.