Riga Airport Handled 3 Million Passengers in the First Half of the Year

The number of passengers handled in the Riga Airport in the first six months of this year has reached 3 million travelers which is nearly 40 percent more than a year ago. Operational data of the airport performance shows that 637 thousand passengers used Riga Airport in June, which is by 17 % more than last June.

Because of the wide range of destinations available to travelers from Riga, the percentage of transfer and transit passengers shows stabilizing trends compared to 2022, when it saw a significant drop caused by the war in Ukraine and international sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus. Riga as a transfer point was used by 21 percent of passengers during the first six months this year (in 2022 – 17 %), but in June percentage of these passengers reached 23 % (last year – 16 %).

The occupancy of passenger aircraft in January–June was 72 percent (in 2022 – 64 %), but in June it was 79%. Most popular destinations among travellers in June were Spain, Cyprus and Malta, as well as Ireland and Israel. Airlines with the highest load factor rates were “Transavia”, “Ryanair” and “WizzAir”.

More than a half or 58 % of all passengers flew with the national airline “airBaltic” in the first six months this year and 16 % of passengers were serviced by the Irish low-cost airline “Ryanair”.

Since the beginning of the year, Riga Airport has handled nearly 29 thousand passenger, cargo, business aviation and other flights, but in June the number of handled flights reached 5,689 or 13 % more than last June.