Riga Airport to Upgrade Baggage Belts in the Schengen Arrivals Hall

12/11/2019

In order to provide a faster and top-quality service to the increasing number of travellers, Riga Airport will be upgrading and extending the baggage reclaim belts in the Schengen Arrivals Hall.


After the upgrade, the capacity of the baggage belts will increase, allowing more baggage units to be placed on the belt at the same time, which will allow faster handling of arriving flights and reduce baggage waiting times.

During the reconstruction period, which is to start on Monday, 7 October, there will be delimitation of active work areas in the baggage reclaim hall, therefore passengers should follow the directions to find their baggage reclaim point and exit to the arrivals hall. Passengers will also be assisted by Airport staff, who may be contacted for guidance if necessary.

Extension of baggage reclaim belts is one of the temporary improvements for the Airport to increase its capacity until the construction of the extension of the Airport passenger terminal. The aim of the improvements is to make the most efficient use of the current Airport facilities for high-quality passenger service without large financial capital investments. The baggage belts in the non-Schengen baggage reclaim hall were already extended this summer.

As reported before, the new Airport terminal is to be built by 2025 and it will feature a spacious and modern check-in area, a security control area, and baggage reclaim and arrivals areas. After the expansion, the capacity of the public part of the Airport will increase to 10 million passengers a year instead of the current 3.5 million passengers. Currently, the new terminal is being designed, and it will be completed next spring; the construction works are scheduled to be completed in 2025.

Already more than 5.9 million passengers have been serviced in the first nine months of 2019, which is 10.7% more than during the corresponding period of the previous year.


Riga International Airport is a fast-growing Northern European air traffic hub. The 20 airlines operating at Riga Airport offer more than 90 destinations in the winter season and more than 100 in the summer season. In 2018, Riga Airport handled over 7 million passengers - nearly a half of the entire Baltic air passenger traffic.