Ryanair celebrates 10 years in the Baltics

31/10/2014

Ryanair, Europe’s favourite low fares airline, today (31 October) celebrated its 10th birthday in the Baltic countries. A celebration was held at Riga Airport, where Ryanair first started its Baltic operations in October 2004 with routes to London Stansted and Frankfurt Hahn. H.E. Mr Aidan Kirwan, Ambassador of Ireland to Latvia as well as Mr. Aldis Mūrnieks, Riga International Airport Chairman of the Board attended the event to celebrate this important milestone with Ryanair.

Ryanair’s operations in the Baltics expanded in September 2005 when Ryanair commenced Lithuanian flights from Kaunas to London Stansted. In 2010 Ryanair made Kaunas its first and so far only Baltic base and later that year also started operations in Tallinn Estonia. Ryanair’s fourth Baltic airport was opened in May 2011 when Ryanair started to fly to/from Vilnius.

In ten years Ryanair has carried over 15 million passengers to and from the three Baltic countries. Currently Ryanair offers over 50 routes from Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas and Vilnius, including the newly added destinations Cologne (from Riga), Shannon (from Kaunas) and Madrid (from Vilnius). This year Ryanair will carry up to 2.3 million customers in the Baltics while sustaining up to 2,300 jobs in the tourism sector in the regions of the four airports, underlining Ryanair’s commitment to and investment in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Ryanair’s Elina Hakkarainen said:

“In 10 years Ryanair has carried in total just over 15 million passengers in the three Baltic countries. We are very happy to celebrate today our 10th Baltic birthday in Riga where our Baltic operations started back in October 2004. Ryanair currently offers over 50 exciting low fares destinations to/from Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas and Vilnius and our summer 2015 schedules are now on sale on www.ryanair.com. We hope that Ryanair will continue its growth and success in all the three Baltic countries in the years to come!

Our Baltic passengers can enjoy a large number of recent service improvements including the allowance of small second carry-on bag, allocated seating, “Family Extra” and “Business Plus” services and Ryanair app making Ryanair the ideal choice for families and friends planning their next holidays.

To celebrate our 10th anniversary in Riga and the Baltics, Ryanair launched a special seat sale for €19.99/69LTL for travel in November and December. These sale seats are valid on 15 of Ryanair’s Baltic routes, like Tallinn to Oslo Rygge, Riga to Cologne, Kaunas to Frankfurt Hahn and Vilnius to Milan Bergamo and are only available until midnight (24:00hrs) Monday 3rd November. At these mad low prices are sure to be snapped up fast, so we urge customers to book these flights on the Ryanair.com website before they sell out.”