Riga Airport Starts the Year with a Drop of More than 90% in Passenger Numbers

The operational performance data show that in January 2021, Riga Airport handled just over 50 thousand passengers, which is 90.4 percent fewer passengers than a year before.

In January 2020, Riga Airport served more than half a million passengers, whereas in January 2021 it only served 50,400. 15 percent of travelers used Riga Airport as a transit hub to go to other destinations.

The majority or 68 percent of passengers handled in January were carried by the national airline airBaltic, almost 15 percent by the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair and 4.5 percent by the Hungarian low-cost carrier WizzAir.

In the first month of 2021, 1700 aircraft took off and landed at Riga Airport – 73.9 percent fewer than January 2020. The volume of passenger flights has dropped by 85.2 percent, while the number of cargo and other types of flights has increased – by 49.1 percent and 43.3 percent, respectively.

With the volume of cargo carried by passenger aircraft decreasing significantly – by 69.2 percent, the total volume of cargo handled at Riga Airport has also decreased by 13.6 percent. However, half as much cargo was transported by cargo aircraft as in January 2020 – the volume of such cargo has increased by 53 percent. A total of less than 2,000 tonnes of cargo were handled at Riga Airport in the first month of 2021.