Riga International Airport welcomes more than 400 thousand passengers for the second month in its history

03/09/2009

In August 2009 Riga International Airport welcomed 428 thousand passengers or 8.9 percent more than in August 2008. It was the second month in the history of Riga Airport when the passenger turnover exceeded 400 thousand.

In the eight months of this year Riga International Airport handled 2 679 369 passengers or 9.7 percent up from 2 443 045 passengers in the same period of 2008.

Krišjānis Peters, Chairman of the Board of Riga International Airport, thus comments on the eight month results: „10 percent growth in passenger traffic at Riga International Airport is achieved thanks to the rising transit passenger flow. At present the share of transit passengers exceeds 30 percent of the total passenger turnover. The residents of the neighbour states, the Nordic countries, Russia and the CIS increasingly choose Riga International Airport as a convenient transit point for connected flights. As before, there is a balanced proportion of arriving and departing passengers which means that one half of the passengers at Riga International airport arrive and the other half are those departing.”
„The opposite trend is observed in the travel habits of the Latvian population. This year, compared with 2008, the number of the Latvian residents using Riga Airport has dropped by approximately 20 percent. This declining trend is due to the economic situation in the country and the falling purchasing power of the people,” said K.Peters.

In August the airport handled 5 762 aircrafts or 7.7 percent up year on year. In the eight months of 2009 39 736 aircrafts were handled which is 6.5 percent more than in the same period of 2008 (37 320 aircrafts).

Cargo turnover at Riga International Airport in August rose by 15 percent year on year reaching 721 tons. In the eight months of this year cargo turnover reached 5 655 tons or 16.4 percent more than in the same period of 2008 when the airport handled 4 858 tons of cargo.

Currently the passengers from Riga International Airport can fly to 70 direct destinations. In 2009 ten new routes were opened: to Tromso (Norway), Palanga and Kaunas (Lithuania), Linkoping (Sweden), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Forli (Italy), Geneva (Switzerland), Tartu (Estonia), Turku (Finland) and Pskov (Russia).