Baltic airports - how they do? (Archive) [Archive] - Page 2

Janis_LV

February 10th, 2005, 10:48 PM

In January 2005 the most popular direct routes (regarding the number of passengers) from Riga Airport were:

1. Riga – London (airBaltic, British Airways, Ryanair )
2. Riga – Frankfurt Hahn (Ryanair)
3. Riga – Amsterdam (airBaltic, KLM)
4. Riga – Copenhagen (airBaltic)
5. Riga – Berlin (airBaltic, EasyJet)

This is information from homepage of Riga City council: http://www.riga.lv/Templates/no_navigation.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fLV%2fPostingData%2fNews%2f2005%2f2%2friiga_londona_populaaraakais_lidojumu_marshruts_janvaarii%2ehtm%3fWBCMODE%3dPresentationUnpublished&NRNODEGUID=%7b50085701-D291-4E2D-8A2E-7CD0358239E1%7d&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished

In total Riga Airport in January 2005 serviced 101 203 passengers (+50% than January 2004), operated 2270 flights (+50, 4% than January 2004)

Riga Airport departure zone behind passport and safety controll:

http://img229.exs.cx/img229/4993/airport1vw.jpg

Janis_LV

February 10th, 2005, 10:50 PM

When do they start to fly Rome?

The start their flight at the beginning of March.

Gatis

February 11th, 2005, 07:02 PM

"Uzbekistan Airways" claims that Tashkent-Riga-NewYork flight so far has been quite successful. They are eager to increase cooperation. As announced by Riga City executive director today - new route Riga-Tashkent-Shanghai is under consideration.

Janis_LV

February 15th, 2005, 11:29 PM

yesterday saw in news, that some EU countries like Germany and France want to invent special tax for fuel used in aircrafts. It could increase the price of the flight tickets even for up to 15 euros. And the money raised in this way they want to give to poor countries in Africa.

New taxes are obviously the only thing these lagging countries can invent, sad that they are pulling in the mess they are themselves in everybody else.

If they want to help African countries, maybe they should consider to stop paying big subsidies to their farmers and give this money instead to Aficans.

Gatis

February 21st, 2005, 01:21 PM

Ryanair starts flying Riga - Stockholm (Skavsta).

This is reported here already... but airBaltic starts several new routes in this spring:
- Riga - Paris (from 30th April), prices from some 65 EUR
- Riga - Munich (from 27th April), prices from some 65 EUR. This is fifth German city with direct flights from Riga.
- Riga - Barcelona (from 24 March), some 80 EUR
- Riga - Istanbul (from 1st March), some 80 EUR

Inner flights Riga-Liepaja and Riga-Ventspils might start at the end of this year as well, to be operated by airBaltic. Otherwise airBaltic will stop expanding for a while to see how this all works.
- - -
Regarding passenger harbours - seems, Finnish-Estonian "Tallink" might start operating their passenger ferry in line Riga - Stockholm. More concrete plans are not yet revealed. Bad news for Riga Shipping Lines (claimed as having not too good quality), but hopefully good news for Riga... If only Tallinnk will not "sink"" Riga Shipping Lines and then disappear? Who knows?

ch1le

February 21st, 2005, 02:22 PM

Regarding passenger harbours - seems, Finnish-Estonian "Tallink" might start operating their passenger ferry in line Riga - Stockholm. More concrete plans are not yet revealed. Bad news for Riga Shipping Lines (claimed as having not too good quality), but hopefully good news for Riga... If only Tallinnk will not "sink"" Riga Shipping Lines and then disappear? Who knows?

good news! But still its Estonian Tallink :) :sly:

Gatis

February 21st, 2005, 02:32 PM

Sorry, mistake of our mass media. I checked - Tallink is pure breed Estonian.
http://www.tallink.ee/en/index2.html#/en/ettevottest/ajalugu.html

ch1le

February 21st, 2005, 02:43 PM

pure, im not sure, but the lines are hazy with all big companies, home stock exchange will be Tallinn (they will do IPO soon, and that is relevant to me)

anyhow the major of Riga - Gundars Bojars - is against the line, he says that it will drive Riga sea lines into bankrupt..

Maris VX

February 23rd, 2005, 05:11 PM

20 000 tickets booked for Riga-Stockholm Skavsta flights (Ryanair). Regular flights started this Monday. Seems this route will be successful.

Janis_LV

February 23rd, 2005, 07:31 PM

oh god. Who is going to Stockholm? It is as interesting as Tampere.. Especially in winter

I prefere Southern Europe and big Western European cities.

Maybe people are using Stockholm as place to get flight further, because from Stockholm there are more destinations, especially to Southern Europe. But if you instead of 2 flights have to book 4, reaching a destination with Ryanair can be as expensive as direct flights with airBaltic. I personally then prefere direct flights.

If Ryanair opens this route only to make Stockholm a hub in Northern Europe and to increase the number of passengers while avoiding necessity to make more direct flights from Riga - I hope these plans will fail.

Waiting for flights to Southern Europe. All the rest doesn't make difference.

grendy

February 24th, 2005, 05:21 PM

Tampere is just as interesting as Stockholm... yeah right ;)

Maris VX

February 24th, 2005, 07:56 PM

Stockholm is BEAUTY ON WATER.

Drottningsgatan - one of the nicest walking/shopping/sightseeing streets.

Stockholm Archipelago.

Vasa museum.

Skansen.

Armeemuseum.

Kungstradgarden.

Old town on island in Saltsjon.

Sodermalm heights.

And many more places ... Stockholm is nice place in winter too.

And this interest shows it as well.

And... I will go to Tampere soon as well.

sander

February 27th, 2005, 08:19 PM

City Airline will start to flight between Göteborg and Tallinn in 21. of march....

Janis_LV

March 7th, 2005, 02:53 PM

Any statistics about passenger number in Riga Airport in February and airBaltic operational statistics for Feruary?

LatvianGG

March 7th, 2005, 02:56 PM

yeah, they are late with the statistics this month.....

Gatis

March 8th, 2005, 12:09 PM

Finally Riga airport released data about February 2005:
- 96 829 passengers.
In January + February = 198 032 people = 93% increase compared to last year.
The number of flights has increased per 44,5% comparing to last year. Now in a day there are served some 76 flights.

2 mio passengers in 2005 seem quite possible.

Gatis

March 8th, 2005, 03:57 PM

As announced by the Minister of Transportation - Air Baltic will starts inland flights to Liepaja at the end of March. Initially - 4 times per week. Price per flights is low as signal that this flight is support to regional development.
Initial experience would be analysed by Air Baltic to decide whether to start flights to Ventspils or not.

liutass

March 8th, 2005, 04:09 PM

Janis_LV

March 8th, 2005, 05:18 PM

Riga - Liepaja 215 km
Riga - Ventspils 184 km
Riga - Daugavpils 229 km

LatvianGG

March 8th, 2005, 05:23 PM

Are those distances taken as a straight line or by motorways?

Gatis

March 8th, 2005, 05:58 PM

Wait a little, I will use my GIS system ;)
Riga airport - Liepaja airport = 181,7 km
Riga City Council - Liepaja City Council = 196,3 km

Riga airport - Ventspils airport = 154,9 km
Riga city council - Ventspils city council = 162,2 km

Distance of airports from City councils, direct line:

in Riga = 8,2 km
in Ventspils = 3,4 km
in Liepaja = 5,8 km

liutass

March 9th, 2005, 10:33 AM

Hmm...too little distance for a jet flight, don't you find?

Janis_LV

March 9th, 2005, 12:36 PM

By car these are 3 hours to drive, by bus, 3 hours 40 minutes or more. Dont know who is gonna use these flights but I can imagine that for some very busy poeple it is too long to spend 6 hours in car ust to get to Liepaja and back in Riga.

John

March 9th, 2005, 03:18 PM

According to delfi article Vilnius-London route is becoming a "golden stream" for flight companies. In summer season there will be 4 direct flights Vilnius-London per day operated by 3 main companies: LAL, Airbaltic and BA. That should be 28 flights per week.
BA is staring flights this spring and AirBaltic will increase the number of flights.

ch1le

March 9th, 2005, 03:20 PM

John

March 9th, 2005, 03:28 PM

the great unwashed masses of lithuania are discovering London?
Hehhe J/K :P
28 lines per week is alot, its sad, baltic capitals have so many connections everywhere in the world...yet i still can get pretty much anywhere with the amount of money i have to spend to go to Vilnius by plane... scary

I believe the number of London-Vilnius flights won't be lower than Vilnius-London ;)

Talking about prices. The prices of flights have decreased several times in the last couple of years. Even British Airways offer a 2 way Vilnius-London-Vilnius flight from 300LTL (87 Eur) without taxes if booking tickets in advance. It's a shame Lithuania yet hasn't got any lowcost flight company operating in Vilnius or Kaunas, that would be even cheaper. :)

Gatis

March 9th, 2005, 06:11 PM

I used the flight Liepaja-Riga in schooltime. That was funny - plane just went up and immediately started to go down. Flight time was some 20 minutes. Incredible feeling - going home from the school took more time.
- - -
Fokker-50 would be used for these flights, ticket will cost around 22 - 30 EUR. Flights will start in 4th April.

Meier

March 9th, 2005, 08:17 PM

I believe the number of London-Vilnius flights won't be lower than Vilnius-London ;)

Talking about prices. The prices of flights have decreased several times in the last couple of years. Even British Airways offer a 2 way Vilnius-London-Vilnius flight from 300LTL (87 Eur) without taxes if booking tickets in advance. It's a shame Lithuania yet hasn't got any lowcost flight company operating in Vilnius or Kaunas, that would be even cheaper. :)
I have just checked Ryanair offers RIX-STN-RIX. I chose a day some months in advance so they offered me the tickets for 87,87LVL (126€) and that's the cheapest ticket available on this route. Meanwhile, airBaltic offers VNO-LGW-VNO for 462LTL (134€), so basically we cannot say that it's cheaper to fly from Riga to London than from Vilnius. As airBaltic and BA offers quite cheap tickets (BA doesn't offer cheap one-way tickets as far as I know), so Vilnius is quite well connected to London just as Riga is. By the way, the problem with Vilnius is not lack of cheap tickets offered by air companies, but quite high taxes at the airport. It costs more than Vantaa, Berlin or Hannover airports take but Vilnius airport offers less services than those airports offer.

Compare:
Ticket for 462 LTL
Fare: 250 LTL
Taxes: 212 LTL

I think airport taxes is the real problem why prices of tickets do not decrease faster.

John

March 9th, 2005, 08:51 PM

@Meier

True. Although that's not the biggest and not the only problem. The main problem is that there are no lowcost airlines in Vilnius what makes it "unreachable" for many potential UK visitors. Many people just check Easyjet or Ryanair websites and choose their destinations. Not that many British or Germans really know that AirBaltic and other companies also offer cheaper flights.

LatvianGG

March 10th, 2005, 11:27 AM

Well, the lowcost airlines would probably consider to fly to Vilnius (or Kaunas) once the airport taxes are lower as it was in Riga's case. In fact, the goverment especially did lower the airport tax to bring those airlines to Riga in order to stimulate tourism.
This is done as you know quite succesfully, only a new problem arrives - Riga has got not enough hotels! Already now many visitors are staying in Jurmala's hotels.

Gatis

March 10th, 2005, 12:53 PM

Passenger shipping to Riga used in election campaign ;)
Minister of transportation Slesers just some weeks before elections has started active PR - he is meeting several ferry companies and making rather misty agreements about these ferry lines coming to Riga. Some weeks ago he "agreed" with "Tallink" that they might start regular traffic between Riga and Stockholm. Today he announces that Finnish "Silja Line" during the coming weeks will review the possibility to start operation on line Riga-Stockholm as well.
http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/SiljaLine/Silja_Festival05sp1125.jpg
Similar trick was used by social-democrats and some others before last elections - they "made" local company operating the line Riga-Stockholm. Over the last 4 years it has not much progressed - due to the weird policy of Riga harbour...
- - -
PR of politicians is interesting thing... but they should do something with Riga Harbour first - to make it low cost similar to Riga airport and to start real development of infrastructure...
I do not believe that Tallink or Silja will stay in Riga for long time with the existing situation in the harbour.

Janis_LV

March 10th, 2005, 05:26 PM

I checked how much could cost a flight both way all inclusive on a certain day here are the results for departure 19.07 and return 26.07 (with exception of BA who don’t fly to VILNIUS on these dates so I BA shows the cheapest possible price on dates indicated lower.

London Stansted – Riga 78 GBP (Ryannair)
London Heathrow – Riga 97 GBP (airBaltic)
London Heathrow – Riga 100 GBP (BA 13 – 27 july)

London Gatwick – Vilnius 144 GBP (airBaltic)
London Gatwick – Vilnius 98 GBP (BA 13 – 27 july)

Was surprised actually - BA costs as much as airBaltic now. They lowered the princes. Dont know how they can survive. AirBaltic payes much less to teh stuff than BA. And to Vilnius airBaltic flies even more expensive than BA.

And lowest price London Gatwick – Vilnius with Lithunian Airlines is the same as BA ca 100 GBP.

Is hard to compare actually ticket princes randomly selecting one date and looking how is the price. Because price could be affected by also how popular is the route. So to it would be better to compare the average price of the ticket if every seat would be sold.

I am going to London with Ryanair again next week and my ticket was 51 GBP all inclusive and I will fly in May again and I bought the ticket for 47 GBP. But the flight I made in January was 30 GBP both way all inclusive. But Ryanair isn’t an airline to use in weekends, then it become as expensive as al the other airlines. If you want cheap flights one mustn’t fly from Friday to Sunday.

But, anyway, good to hear that BA starts flights to Vilnius. It is prestigious thing. Long time the only city they were flying in Baltics was RIGA. Looks that Tallinn is the last Baltic capital neglected by BA.

John

March 10th, 2005, 05:48 PM

@Janis

BA used to fly to Vilnius, they terminated their route a few years ago though. Now they're restarting their flights as the numbers of passengers is increasing.

Janis_LV

March 11th, 2005, 10:25 AM

Speaking of Ryanair prices - just checked - flights in May to Frankfurt from Riga for example dep.11.05 and back 17.05 costs 33 euros both way all inclusive.

To Stockholm dep 19.05 and ret. 24.05 costs 41 euro both way all inclusive. Not all that bad.

London on dep 11.05 ret. 17.05 costs 41 GBP

not all that bad :)

Sadly I have to go to University too some time, otherwise I would have bought some of these tickets.

mlm

March 11th, 2005, 01:43 PM

Speaking of Ryanair prices - just checked - flights in May to Frankfurt .....
What you need to remember when looking at the Ryanair prices is that they often (most places) fly to small airports located pretty far from the cities. For example to Frankfurt, Here they use Frankfurt-Hahn, which is some 100 km from Frankfurt. You have to use some 12,00 € on the bus each way.

Of course this is not a huge amount, but it's worth considder when ordering tickets. Maybe it will actually end up being just as cheap with another airline, and a hole lot faster. Frankfurt Airport is for example just some 12 km from the city center.

Janis_LV

March 11th, 2005, 05:18 PM

What you need to remember when looking at the Ryanair prices is that they often (most places) fly to small airports located pretty far from the cities. For example to Frankfurt, Here they use Frankfurt-Hahn, which is some 100 km from Frankfurt. You have to use some 12,00 € on the bus each way.

Of course this is not a huge amount, but it's worth considder when ordering tickets. Maybe it will actually end up being just as cheap with another airline, and a hole lot faster. Frankfurt Airport is for example just some 12 km from the city center.

Yes Ryanair to compare with Lufthansa is loosing in some way - it doesn't fly to main airport, you can get free drinks and food on board, but it is ca 4 times cheaper. Even if to get to the city we have to pay as you said 12 euro, it is more than gainfully to use Ryanair to get to Frankfurt.

but not always Ryanair flies to most remote airports. In Riga they fly to the main airport 6 km from city center. In London they fly to a completely normal city airport which is only a bit further than other main airports Gatwick or Luton. In Rome they go to Ciampino which is even nearer to the city center then the main Fiumicino airport. And I think most poeple who use Ryanair flight to Frankfurt from Riga don't need to arrive in Frankfurt but everywhere in Western Germany Cologne, Mannheim, Stuttgart . And for these poeple is Hahn is comfortably located in the central Western Germany, and there are buses going to every big city in the region. Or people use Frankfurt Hahn as place to change flight and go further.

I have used the Ryanair flying to London - service was excellent and they were always on time, which is not the case often when you fly with Lufthansa.

mlm

March 11th, 2005, 06:07 PM

/\ I agree that Ryanair is pretty decent. I'm just trying to point out that it isn't all red roses with these low cost airlines.

I've flown from Århus, DK to London Stansted with Ryanair. It was very cheap too, and the flight was okay (though not really any service onboard). The problem with these, as I see it, is the already mentioned smaller airports (often, not always;) ) and the fact that many of the offered times are pretty bad. For example, when I had to got back to Denmark form Stansted the flight was so early in the morning that there wasn't any connections from London. I simply had to go to the airport in the evening, and then stay all night waiting. But of course you get what you pay for.

Anyway, I would at any time prefere Ryanair flights over no flights at all:)

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 04:55 PM

I don't think Riga will handle more than 2.5 million passengers in 2010,
nor any other Baltic airport, simply there is not enough interest to go there, tourism in Baltic's is still sort of in infancy, I think Tallinn has best perspective to become more attractive location for air-traffic passengers.

Tallinn can handle 600 passengers at peak hour - giving them a 2.5 million capacity this would be achievable in 2010 but with aggressive growth, Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn this year can except to achieve 1.25 million passengers each this year, not more.

I know they had large growth last year but they where going from relatively low base.

Airports in Baltic's will eventually handle more than 7.5 million combined but not this decade or at the end of it.

I think it would be cool if ppl can give more pic's of all 3 airports and expand more on expansion plans for al Baltic airports....

Also all 3 airports have about the same number of air-gates about 5 - calculate this by 12-15 hours and and 364 days than calculate this by about 80 passengers and this will give you absolute capacity of each airport.
And you bare in mind max number of landings - and takes offs is dictated how many runways there are, if only one than absolute max for an airport is 130 000 landings/takeoffs per annum...
Hope this data helps....

In reference to some mentioned data from other Airports in central Europe, last year Ljubljana handled 1 048 000 passengers, (but Ljubljana airport has very small terminal as do all Croatian Airports)

Zagreb Airport handled 1 408 000 , Dubrovnik 880 000 and Split 780 000 - all Croatian Airports.

Belgrade 1 913 000 and Podgorica nearly 300 000 passengers both Airports in Serbia&Montenegro Federation

:) :cheers:

Janis_LV

March 15th, 2005, 05:40 PM

I don't think Riga will handle more than 2.5 million passengers in 2010,

You are too pessimistic can I ask you something? Have you been in the Baltic? At least Tallinn, as you were talking so "competetent" about Tallinn's perspective in air plane tourism?

Don't know so much about Balkan countries and can't talk about development trends in there, but 2,5 millions in Riga at the end of decade seems too few. I would say at least 5 millions seems real.

The interest about Baltics, especially what regards city and cultural tourism seem to be rising only. I admit for a very long period the tourist interest about Baltic countries (outside Northern Europe) was almost nonexistent, but still with all this and with very expensive flights and poor local people, who always used the buses for international travel, we managed to have around 0.7 million passengers a year. Actually the first year Riga experienced that tourist might also come here was last year. But last year there was no Ryanair and Easy Jet, airBaltic was only opening many of its cheap routes, gradually, and many people started to interest about Baltic countries during the Joining EU period and this was beginning of the summer, when most people have made their plans already for the summer. So I think it is very likely that already this year we will have 100% growth, e.g, 2 million. And we will see the consequences of liberalization of the air traffic and growing popularity as a result of joining EU. And the next years there will be only growth of interest about the region. As people will turn back home and will tell all their friends who nice it is in there. In the future I believe all Baltic capitals potentially could have as much air plane visitors as at least Helsinki now. But with very good tourism promotion and a little bit luck some of the capitals in future could have as much airplane tourist coming from outside the Northern Europe as Stockholm.

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 05:58 PM

You are too pessimistic :) Can I ask you something? Have you been in the Baltic? At least Tallinn, as you were talking so "competentent" about Tallinn's perspective in air plane tourism?

Don't know so much about Balcan countries and can't talk about development trends in there, but 2,5 milions in Riga at the end of decade seems too few. I would say at least 5 millions seems real.

The interest about Baltics, especially what regards city and cultural tourism seem to be rising only. I admit for a very long period the tourist interest about Baltic countries (outside Northern Europe) was almost nonexistant, but still with all this and with very expensive flights and poor local poeple, who always used the buses for international travell, we managed to have around 0,7 million passengers a year. Actually the first year Riga experienced that tourist might also come her was last year. But last year there was no Ryanair and EasyJet, airBaltic was only opening many of its cheap routes, gradually, and many poeple started to interest about Baltic countries during the Joining EU period and this was beginning of the summer, when most people have made their plans already for the summer. So I think it is very likely that already this year we will have 100% growth, e.g, 2 million. And we will see the consequences of liberalisation of the air traffic and growing popularity as a result of joining EU. And the nex years there will be only growth of inteerest about the region. As people will turn back home and will tell all their friends who nice it is in there. In the future I believe all Baltic capitals potentially coul have as much air plane visitors as at least Helsinki now. But with very good tourism promotiona and a bit luck some of the capitals in future could have as much airplane tourist coming from outside the Northern Europe as Stockholm.

I gave you good mathematical model and you can calculate from it, unless Riga build's big passenger terminal in next 18 months and than there is no likelihood of Riga airport handling more than 2.5 million passengers.
And yes Easy jet is coming to Riga but they are not some sort of miracle workers, and bring all this massive numbers as you would have thought, it is all about how popular the destination is, Riga simply is unknown destination to most of us, nobody knows where it is , what does it offer, how expensive it is and so on.
Budapest is well known city so it is Warsaw and they are barely handling 4.5 million passengers, so get a grip,
It is all how many ppl are willing to visit one place, and I don't ce many ppl flocking to go tot Riga, some Scandinavians will after all cheep booze but from I ce most use ferries to cross the Baltic see in first place.

And Croatia receives more tourist if you combine all Baltic's and add all Scandinavian courtiers to this hot pot you would than start to hit Croatian tourist figures, even Slovenia has more tourist than Latvia and Lithuania combined.
And recognition is all, you are just unknown destinations to most ppl.
It will take years for the numbers you talking of to come some sort of reality.
And yes I was in Tallinn, very nice place.
:cheers:

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 06:00 PM

You are too pessimistic :) Can I ask you something? Have you been in the Baltic? At least Tallinn, as you were talking so "competentent" about Tallinn's perspective in air plane tourism?

Don't know so much about Balcan countries and can't talk about development trends in there, but 2,5 milions in Riga at the end of decade seems too few. I would say at least 5 millions seems real.

The interest about Baltics, especially what regards city and cultural tourism seem to be rising only. I admit for a very long period the tourist interest about Baltic countries (outside Northern Europe) was almost nonexistant, but still with all this and with very expensive flights and poor local poeple, who always used the buses for international travell, we managed to have around 0,7 million passengers a year. Actually the first year Riga experienced that tourist might also come her was last year. But last year there was no Ryanair and EasyJet, airBaltic was only opening many of its cheap routes, gradually, and many poeple started to interest about Baltic countries during the Joining EU period and this was beginning of the summer, when most people have made their plans already for the summer. So I think it is very likely that already this year we will have 100% growth, e.g, 2 million. And we will see the consequences of liberalisation of the air traffic and growing popularity as a result of joining EU. And the nex years there will be only growth of inteerest about the region. As people will turn back home and will tell all their friends who nice it is in there. In the future I believe all Baltic capitals potentially coul have as much air plane visitors as at least Helsinki now. But with very good tourism promotiona and a bit luck some of the capitals in future could have as much airplane tourist coming from outside the Northern Europe as Stockholm.

Pessimistic!???? Well come to me at the end of 2005 and we'll check who was right and wrong.

Tourism in Estonia has taken strong roots and many ppl go there for wild weekend parties, I can ce Tallinn being most popular destination in Baltic's.

I gave you good mathematical model and you can calculate from it, unless Riga build's big passenger terminal in next 18 months and than there is no likelihood of Riga airport handling more than 2.5 million passengers.
And yes Easy jet is coming to Riga but they are not some sort of miracle workers, and bring all this massive numbers as you would have thought, it is all about how popular the destination is, Riga simply is unknown destination to most of us, nobody knows where it is , what does it offer, how expensive it is and so on.
Budapest is well known city so it is Warsaw and they are barely handling 4.5 million passengers, so get a grip,
It is all how many ppl are willing to visit one place, and I don't ce many ppl flocking to go tot Riga, some Scandinavians will after all cheep booze but from I ce most use ferries to cross the Baltic see in first place.

And Croatia receives more tourist if you combine all Baltic's and add all Scandinavian countries to this hot pot you would than start to hit Croatian tourist figures, even Slovenia has more tourist than Latvia and Lithuania combined.

And recognition is all, you are just unknown destinations to most ppl.
It will take years for the numbers you talking of to come some sort of reality.
And yes I was in Tallinn, very nice place.
:cheers:

ch1le

March 15th, 2005, 06:03 PM

/\ is that true? Croatia reseved more then all baltics? The number of foreign tourist arrivals last year was near 4 million? How did Croatia do?
edit. Btw tallinn has 6 gates, but if domestinc gates opened and Old terminal opened it could reach more :)
edit2: the 4 million includes thrusty booze tourists ;) but the fact of How many hotels there are in Tallinn (per sqkm) you can see its a pretty hot place
edit3: your figures are pretty good, and you have a good point...

Moolio

March 15th, 2005, 06:05 PM

Riga simply is unknown destination to most of us, nobody knows where it is , what does it offer, how expensive it is and so on,
Budapest is well known city so it is Warsaw and they are barely handling 4.5 million passengers, so get a grip

Helsinki is pretty unknown as well, and we handles 14.3 million passengers last year, so why not Riga a few million?

NorthStar77

March 15th, 2005, 06:51 PM

I thought just the same too. Oslo has the same amount of passengers as hki. 6.5 million were international. Oslo is smaller, less interesting(imo) and alot more expensive than Riga, so I think Riga airport has great potential, given that the airport can handle it.

But we could ask ourselves if as many passengers as possible is the ultimate goal ;)

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 07:13 PM

Well Helsinki and Oslo are well known cities and they had like independence - had time to build airports and attract business, Most new-created countries have not.

It will take time for Baltic states and Balkan states as well to achieve figures of Oslo, Helsinki or Copenhagen.
In early stages tourism, plays vital role, and Baltic's nations have very little of it, and most is concentrated on weekender's not best source of tourist revenue or interest as most are blasted by the time they go home.

And this is why I am confident in saying what I have said.
But hey I could be wrong, it is unlikely to be the case, but it is likely Riga will achieve 2.1 million passengers in 2010 and stagnate at this point, unless they build major airport there - or expand current one this is the fate of the Riga and all Baltic airports or anywhere else for that matter. :)

Janis_LV

March 15th, 2005, 07:18 PM

I am not talking about Easy Jet. I am talking that cheap flights from a number of destinations will increase the number of passengers. Don’t you agree? I think you do. So - we didn’t had this completely even last year, and we still managed to have more then million passengers. I think this means that there is a potential.

I think we have to distinguish what we are talking about: first, we’re talking about state of things now, second, we’re talking about state of things in the future. Third, we’re talking about dynamics or trend we see now and what will take as from the state of things now to state of things in the future.

Now Riga is unknown? Depends, but now it is really not as popular as Budapest. That’s true. But with all this we managed to have 1 million passengers last year. So I think we have to become only a bit more popular and we will have 2 millions very soon and we have to become as popular as Budapest or Prague and we will have even more passengers than they (of course if popularity goes together with other structural changes necessary) and that’s exactly what is happening – the trend is that Riga is becoming more and more popular. I am working as a tour guide in summer for the main incoming tour agency in region, in all three Baltic countries. I am working mostly with English, American, German and Italian tourists. All I see is that people, initially only curious to see what’s here, gradually, object after object, become overwhelmed by all the positive experience and beauty they expect to see in Paris or Venice, but never expected to see in Baltics.
The region has many things to offer and big potential to become very popular tourist destination. And my experience shows that, almost nobody remains disappointed. So if the trend - the growing popularity and cheap flight to many destinations – state of the things at the decade Riga will be just as popular as Budapest, Prague or Copenhagen.

Don’t know why you compare Baltics with Balkans…as these two regions are completely different. I would compare Latvia with other countries in region with similar conditions relevant for tourism, for example, Finland which is also scarcely populated northern country far from densely populated central and Western Europe, but which is more developed in tourism as Baltic.

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 07:36 PM

Janis_LV

March 15th, 2005, 07:39 PM

Janis_LV

March 15th, 2005, 07:50 PM

Well, you don’t know the pace Baltics is developing. I barely recognize this country if I compare it with what it used to be 5 years ago. What somewhere else is 20 years in Baltics are 5. Everything is growing very fast here. Don’t be so pessimistic 

And I don’t want to compare Riga with Prague or Budapest. Both latter ones are bigger capitals of bigger countries and accordingly will always have bigger airports.

Anyway - what I’m insisting is that with the pace of development we have now, Riga is likely to get 5 million passengers a year 2010. That’s all I am saying!!

P.S I am glad you liked Tallinn. It’s a matter of taste.

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 08:02 PM

I agree Helsinki and Oslo is very well known, besides, would be interesting to compare, share of foreigners fro all the passengers handled in the airport in Oslo or Helsinki and in Riga or Tallinn. I suppose the first ones have smaller share of foreigners than the latter ones. No doubt tehre are more people that can afford to travell in Norway or Finnalnd than in Latvia or Estonia That's why teher are more passengers in their airports. I think in Baltics more than in Scandinavia and Finnland incoming tourist dynamics affects the number of passengers in airports.

Talking about croatia - no city in Northern Europe, especially if it as far from rich and densely populated central Europe as St. Petersburg, Riga or Helsinki, can compete with Malliorca's, Ibiza's, Rimini's, Mykonos' or Dalmatia' beaches and sun. It isn't proper to compare them.

Example Split Airport, Croatia - overcrowded and insufficiently infrastructure to cope with existing traffic - this airport has no chance handling more than 1.5 million with existing terminal as you can ce from pics....
http://www.split-airport.hr/album/Putnicka_in/Velike/sl_8.jpg
http://www.split-airport.hr/album/Stajanka/Velike/sl_2.jpg
http://www.split-airport.hr/album/Stajanka/Velike/sl_14.jpg
http://www.split-airport.hr/album/Stajanka/Velike/sl_7.jpg

I am not tiring to, what I am saying it takes time for city and country be known and for the passengers and figures to add up and increase I am not trying to compare Croatia with Baltic's, as there is no comparison to be made, but what I am saying this countries with all there tourism are just now starting to build up and if you have relatively inadequate infrastructure it is hard to get figures up., and I must say most of Croatia's airport are inadequate and can't handle the traffic unless they expand there airports - exactly what I am saying for Baltic's, forget 6 million passengers even with many airline landing at Riga if the infrastructure want cope, you need to expand the airports and build supporting facilities so the number you mentioned, Riga could cope with..

I hope you get what I am saying... :cheers:

Edd

March 15th, 2005, 08:07 PM

If there will be passengers the airports will be easily expanded. I really don't see any problems here. Airport infrastructure will not lower the number of passengers - thats for sure. The problem is completely different - how to attract more tourists, other passengers.

mic of Orion

March 15th, 2005, 08:20 PM

well, not exactly, Split, Dubrovnik, Zagreb have already archived there capacities and passenger numbers are increasing in all Croatia's airports, and more and more tourist arriving to Croatia - as you know, but if there is no money to finance the infrastructure projects of this scale than numbers cant go up as fast as you would want them, and eventual they hit upper limit of there existing infrastructure than airports want increase,
My calculations show that Riga and Vilnius with existing infrastructure cant handle more than 2.18 million passengers this is upper calling or max for this airports.

and unless Riga start major advertising and expands its airport the figure of 2.2 million is all they going to handle. 5 million passengers - no way before 2020 for either airports.
Simply there is not enough interest for this 2 countries to justify 5 million passengers for Riga or Vilnius.
:cheers:

Janis_LV

March 15th, 2005, 08:27 PM

you need to expand the airports and build supporting facilities so the number you mentioned, Riga could cope with..

But the development of infrastructure isn't a problem. New terminals have been opened and will be opened. there is apprehension of this need and tehre is enough money for it. it is all in process. So unlike you I don't see the challenge in infrastructure, thats the easiest thing. Main challenge is good connections to Riga from many points and good advertising policiy as many other things.

DOnt worry about infrastructure.

_keen_

March 15th, 2005, 10:47 PM

I also think the speed of increasing passengers will slow down in the BS in next few years. It is inevivivitable...

ch1le

March 16th, 2005, 05:15 PM

wrong keen. The numbers will keep growing and growing. Specially in the baltics/eastern europe etc. you see more And more people have the cashox now. And more and more people get free time, and if they have gone to Prague, got sick of the sun in the mediterranean they will eventually come to Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania in bigger and bigger numbers. Im expecting a huge rise of japanese (and other asian) tourist % rise in the baltics...

btw, Tallinn airport will go under construction again in 2006, and will make the main building bigger, the entire project will cost approx 400 Mio eek(+ another 200 mio eek to cope with Schengen) (25 mio euro), it Will surely increase capacity :)
ah! More info has emerged, atm the gross area of airport terminal is 14 500 sqm, with the extension it will be 22 000 sqm, ATM the terminal capacity is 850 Passengers per hour thats 1,4 mio per year!
That is just the start :)

ch1le

March 16th, 2005, 05:35 PM

Gatis

March 16th, 2005, 07:08 PM

Riga airport will open the Northern terminal at the end of 2005. There is Southern terminal in early preparation stage. This should end with having some 10 gates at the end of this year and 15 gates after some years. Not terribly much - but still something. I never have seen such crowds in Riga airport as in that picture from Split either. There is constant movement in Riga, airport is lively and busy, but it is not crowded.
I believe that 1,8 - 2 mio passengers are realistic for Riga this year. If it will realise its aims to become a gate between East and Central Asia and Europe - Riga airport might be really successful - otherwise the growth will not be that quick in coming years.
- - -
Of course, Latvia will NOT be major tourism country in a few years. This business is pretty complicated and requires decades of hard and correct work. And even with all the work - we will not get pyramids, southern Sun and fiords to here. Most of European countries always will be more interesting for people to visit than Latvia, that's the sad truth.
Here come some pics of Riga airport as it is today. It is hard to find good pictures of airport with everyday life there.

Outer design of one terminal, which was built around 2003 - a bit plain and non-individualistic - but of good standards.
http://www.riga-airport.com/images/terminals_skaisti.jpg
http://www.qedata.se/bilder/gallerier/lettland/Riga-flygplats.jpg
Inside - waiting room
http://www.riga-airport.com/images/public-zone1.jpg
Departure room:
http://www.riga-airport.com/images/inside.jpg
Viev from above - still only one terminal with 5 gates:
http://kbp.kiev.ua/.db/w300/8742/riga-airport.jpg
Entrance from the city side - would be totally rebuilt this year:
http://www.financenet.lv/images/upload/lidosta_l_7.jpg
Check-in sometimes could take even 20 minutes. But I have experienced the same in Copenhagen of Frankfurt.
http://www.rigasbalss.lv/images/news/14337/image28056.jpg
Dark picture of entrance hall with the same check-in to the left. Yes, often it is that empty.
http://lambcutlet.org/albums/Riga_to_Northampton/Riga_International_Airport.sized.jpg

Thanks, @mik of Orion, your posts are very interesting.

LatvianGG

March 16th, 2005, 07:15 PM

Riga Airport monthly stats 2004.
http://img211.exs.cx/img211/8333/stats2004rix2ha.png

ch1le

March 16th, 2005, 07:54 PM

Wow, riga airport is really kicking it up! Say do you have any statistics about Northern terminal?
edit. im not sure youll get 1,8-2 mio this year, id say 1,5 sounds realistic(i think its a fact) but well see.

mic of Orion

March 16th, 2005, 08:00 PM

Ah, And according to Split airports statistics page... they ONLY serviced 800 000 passengers, all the airports in baltic region serviced more. so you see...
the only time the airport there is full is at summer! Since there is a very very very very very large difference in their arrivals in jan - dec!
http://www.split-airport.hr/Slike/Split_gif/graph_pas_0_4.jpg

Actually Split is very small airport, it will be upgraded in about 18-24 months, needs to be, true it is very erratic for Split airport as it is primarily tourist airport.

All Croatian airports are tourist airports and they are not primary airports only Zagreb is primary airport but it is also small airport (14400 m2) in 1990 airport handled 2 million but it than was part of Yugoslavia, now as independent country it is main airport and new plans call for terminal able to handle about 10 million passengers (12-16 air-bridges planed for new terminal - 150 mill US$ new terminal planned) but until than the airport will be pushed to handle current traffic - Split another hand need immediate expansion - max capacity of Split airport is only 1 million - Dubrovnik airport also require major expansion - don't forget Croatia was at war until 1995 and Dubrovnik airport was out of action till 1997, in 1999 Croatian airports suffered close for business due to the NATO actions Serbia and they closed entire air-space over Balkans.

Normality returned in 2000 and since than All airports in Croatia have grown fast. But my experience is with all airports in emerging Europe - not a single airport even in bigger countries - grown very fast. Prague is the only Airport that has crossed 5 million mark in 2004 and handles over 7.5 million passengers in 2004.

Warsaw and Budapest are excepted to cross 5 million mark this year, Belgrade which has capacity to handle 6 million will probably cross 2.2 million mark this year and Bucharest might cross 3 million mark.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=3387485#post3387485

PLz visit the thread and ce what I am saying for statistics and so on.
But I think it is unlikely for any of Baltic nations to attract 5 million passengers to there airport by 2010, it is just impossible.
Traffic for Airports my Prediction:

Riga Tallinn Vilnius
2005 - 1260 000 1150 000 1200 000
2006 - 1460 000 1350 000 1400 000
2007 - 1660 000 1560 000 1600 000
2008 - 1800 000 1800 000 1800 000
2009 - 2000 000 2000 000 2000 000
2010 - 2180 000 2200 000 2200 000

LatvianGG

March 16th, 2005, 08:06 PM

RIX passengers Jan & Feb 2005 (note - quiet months)
http://img211.exs.cx/img211/5454/statsrix20059kw.png

My predictions for RIX:
Optimistic: 2005 - 2 000 000
2006 - 2 400 000
2007 - 2 800 000
2008 - 3 600 000
2009 - 4 400 000
2010 - 5 000 000 or more

Pessimistic: 2005 - 1 500 000
2006 - 1 700 000
2007 - 2 200 000
2008 - 2 900 000
2009 - 3 500 000
2010 - 4 000 000

ch1le

March 16th, 2005, 08:09 PM

mic of Orion

March 22nd, 2005, 04:37 AM

hmm, that seems unlikely... we had 40-50% Growth this year, we will have more next year, mark my word

edit: Also, id like to thank you for your informative and interesting posts, they brought alot of life in this thread

you only had growth of 250 000 passengers, and this is what you going to do this year if all goes well...

Jacek

March 22nd, 2005, 05:04 AM

Prague is the only Airport that has crossed 5 million mark in 2004 and handles over 7.5 million passengers in 2004.

Warsaw and Budapest are excepted to cross 5 million mark this year, Belgrade which has capacity to handle 6 million will probably cross 2.2 million mark this year and Bucharest might cross 3 million mark.

You have wrong stats. Prague handled 9 million passengers in 2004, Warsaw 6 million so both were over 5 million as of last year.

Kommandant Mark

March 22nd, 2005, 05:55 AM

True, he does have wrong stats;)

Belgrade airport crossed 2.2 million mark last year, and this year 2.5-3 million looks realistic, what with many happenings in the city planned during the year(Eurobasket championships, EBRD conferences among others)

Probably by 2010, 5 million mark will be broken.

mic of Orion

March 22nd, 2005, 03:05 PM

You have wrong stats. Prague handled 9 million passengers in 2004, Warsaw 6 million so both were over 5 million as of last year.

U could be right cose I quoted stats for 2003, just checked my data...

Warsaw had 5.1 million in 2003,
6.1 million in 2004

Budapest - 4.95 million in 2003

Belgrade had 2 million last year but it will not get more than 4 million by 2010...

http://www.lotnisko-chopina.pl/katalog/statystyki/en/statystyki.php

Gatis

April 1st, 2005, 03:46 PM

sander

April 1st, 2005, 07:45 PM

...

sander

April 1st, 2005, 07:46 PM

Some good news
http://www.postimees.ee/300305/gfx/1236042486c77d1642.jpg
There will be two Estonian Air new destinations- Milano and Manchester. Also new competitors come to Amsterdam (KLM), Copenhagen(Flynordic) and Stockholm(Flynordic) airline.

Janis_LV

April 3rd, 2005, 12:14 AM

Latest data from Riga:

In March served 131 963 passengers. In March 2004 it was 64 thousands.
Over the first three months served 329 995 passengers (last year - 167 282). Served 7162 flights (last year 5 105).

If this continues like this - 2 mio passengers in Riga in this year are possible.

My personal statistics

January 2004 - flights 0
February 2004 - flights 0
March 2004 - flight 1
total=1

January 2005 - flights 2
February 2005 - flights 0
March 2005 - flights 4
total=6

increase 600%

Not bad!!
And I am not the only one with such raopid growth in persona statistics.

Maris VX

April 4th, 2005, 10:03 AM

Sander - good news !

My personal statistics -

October 2004 - 1 flight.

December 2004 - 2 flights (Riga-Kyiv; Kyiv-Riga).

February 2005 - 2 flights

March 2005 - 1 flight

April 2005 - 1 flight (completed)

May 2005 - 2 flights

September 2005 - 1 flight (booked already)

And I like Riga airport new terminal.

Janis_LV

April 5th, 2005, 08:44 PM

In 28.05.2005 airBaltic will launch first and for the time being only one domestic flight Riga – Liepaja. Flights will be 4 times a week and only for summer season. Flight will leave Riga at 23:30 and will arrive in Liepaja at 00:10. And flight will depart from Liepaja Airport (LPX by the way) at 5:50 and arrive in RIX at 6:30. Ticket will cost. 15 lats (20 euro) one way all takses inclusive.

Liepaja Airport (LPX) in pictures:
http://www.liepaja-airport.lv/foto/10.jpg
http://www.liepaja-airport.lv/foto/41.jpg
http://www.liepaja-airport.lv/foto/24.jpg
http://www.liepaja-airport.lv/foto/40.jpg

Norxx

April 6th, 2005, 07:12 PM

im soo happy about this because it takes about 3 -4 hours by car but with plane. oh my got.. only 40 min :DDDD

Maris VX

April 8th, 2005, 05:16 PM

In Q1, 329,995 passengers were counted at Riga airport, which is almost double from the respective period in 2004.

The number of passengers in Tallinn Airport reached 275,779, which is 40.7% up from last year, whereas Vilnius Airport - 230,997 passengers or 44% up.

A 46.5% increase was registered at Vilnius Airport, where 6,239 flights were operated in Q1. An increase in flights in Riga Airport reached 40.3% (7162), Whereas at Tallinn Airport, 6,863 flights were operated or 21.1% up from last year.

Major increase in freight turnover this year was registered by Tallinn Airport in three months of this year with 2,323 tons, or 71.5% more. In Riga, 3,760 tons of freight were handled, marking a 58.2% increase. At Vilnius Airport, cargo turnover dropped 10.4% compared to Q1 2004 and stood at 1,186 tons.

Maris VX

April 8th, 2005, 05:18 PM

In the first quarter of this year, the most popular regular flight was Riga-London.

In Q1, 56,999 passengers were carried to/from the U.K. capital city, which is almost four times up from the respective period in 2004.

30,350 more people have been carried on the Riga-Frankfurt route in three months of this year, or 2.3 times up from Q1 of 2004.

The third most popular flight was on Riga-Berlin route. 22,288 passengers were carried on the route, which is 4.6 times up from the respective period last year.

The flight to Copenhagen took fourth place in Q1 of this year with 22,039 passengers or 36.1 percent down from the respective period in 2004.

20,704 passengers were carried on the Riga-Amsterdam route.

Gatis

April 13th, 2005, 02:17 PM

Janis_LV

April 13th, 2005, 03:32 PM

Ryanair will open more routes from Riga this year

This is half news... but still:

"LONDON (AFX) - Ryanair Holdings PLC, the Dublin-based no-frills airline, said it
is considering adding to its existing four routes from Riga, Latvia's capital,
this year.

An airline spokesperson said the existing services from the Latvian capital to
Stockholm, London, Frankfurt and Tampere, in Finland, are developing well but
she refused to give any further details about which new destinations are being
considered.

newsdesk@afxnews.com

nes/jc"

Talked with one of cabin crew on Ryanair plane. He told Ryanair there were rumors that they will make Riga as a base. They are buying new planes and need more space to keep. Riga is relative cheap, in the middle of Baltics, easy to reach by bus from all three countries, many young poeple knowing languages live here and are ready to work as cabin crews:) So why not adn on routes as Riga Brussels or Riga Rome there would be very many passengers.

So I am almost sure they will open new destinations. As I told Brussels and Rome could be realistic. Dublin would be absolute top rout from Riga, but it is quite far. I know this is not policy of Ryanait to fly that far. Maybe first route to Greece?

ch1le

April 13th, 2005, 03:52 PM

There are rumours that Lufthansa will buy the "Dvigatel" Area next to Airport and develop it as a maintanance base for their entire fleet... this is quite a large area ;) and if it Tallinn wins the bid it will provide alot of new work new taxes (since every landing of a plane costs) bad side is that well be getting alot of planes and the noise levels might go up, the area will also get developed, which is good!
ofcourse, thats all if Tallinn wins the bid...and its a rumour, no concrete news yet

Moolio

April 13th, 2005, 04:49 PM

Maris VX

May 2nd, 2005, 11:02 AM

Riga International Airport handled 469 348 passengers in 4 months, almost twice more, comparing with last year (242 474).

139 353 passengers were handled in April (85% growth comparing with last year).

My prognosis for this year - 1,7 million.

Gatis

May 2nd, 2005, 01:40 PM

This time you were faster ;)
In April were served 2 986 flights. This means - 100 flights per day. When Riga was dreaming about international flights some 15 years ago - nobody would believe it!

April - 140 000 (last year 75 000)
March - 131 000 (64 000)
February - 97 000 (52 000)
January - 101 000 (50 000)

ch1le

May 2nd, 2005, 03:52 PM

wow THAT is a huge rize! Tallinn wont do that good.. im sure... this is amaizing..CNN commercial seems to have worked ;)

im so yealous

Baltic region airports must be amongst the fastest growing airports in the world (SURELY in europe) with this kind of growth!

Janis_LV

May 3rd, 2005, 10:59 AM

I am sure the growth rate in Tallinn is as good as in Riga. There is not reason to he jealous. Why dont you find some statistics form Tallinn.

wow THAT is a huge rize! Tallinn wont do that good.. im sure... this is amaizing..CNN commercial seems to have worked ;)

im so yealous

Baltic region airports must be amongst the fastest growing airports in the world (SURELY in europe) with this kind of growth!

ch1le

May 3rd, 2005, 11:50 AM

well... april isnt out yet...
01 was 85 284 41,3%
02 was 85 592 39%
03 was 104 903 41,6%

this may rocket in June, july and august... though...

Maris VX

May 11th, 2005, 06:47 PM

It looks like Irish low-cost flight operator Ryanair may sign an agreement this Friday to start flights from Karmelava airport near Kaunas next autumn. "On Friday we are to hold final talks. We expect to agree on the final version of the contract," Vidmantas Kairys, director of the civil aviation department under the Transport Ministry, told ELTA. Ryanair reportedly could offer flights from Kaunas to London, Frankfurt and Stockholm.

Gatis

May 12th, 2005, 11:58 AM

Then data for Riga will increase slower - because many clients of Riga airport are Lithuanians.

Janis_LV

May 12th, 2005, 02:46 PM

Then data for Riga will increase slower - because many clients of Riga airport are Lithuanians.

Unless Ryanair opens new routes from Riga, which will be used party by Lithuanians again. For example long awaited route to Rome or Brussels.

John

May 13th, 2005, 12:49 PM

From Forbes.com

Lithuania govt says Ryanair to start flights to Kaunas this autumn

VILNIUS (AFX) - Lithuania intends to invite Ryanair Holdings PLC to start low-cost flights to Kaunas airport this autumn, the Transport Ministry said.

It said a delegation from the Irish budget airline, headed by Benny Berger, director of the new flights development department, is to arrive in Lithuania on Friday.

Ryanair is expected to introduce at least one daily service by the end of this year, according to the statement from the Transport Ministry.

However I'm not gonna trust this before I see the first flight taking off or landing in Kaunas. It would be really great if they finally launch the first low-cost route from London to Kaunas. As for now I'm booking tickets to Riga with Ryanair for the beginning of June. After checking a buch of various options Ryanair appears to be the cheapest option to get to Lithuania from London :|

Maris VX

May 13th, 2005, 08:20 PM

Ryanair postponed for one month the final decision on launching the flights from Lithuania. A delegation of Rynair, led by flight development department's director Bernard Berger arrived for a meeting in the Lithuanian Transport Ministry on Friday. Lithuania has suggested starting the first flights with Rynair from an airport near Kaunas as early as next autumn. Valdemaras Salauskas, the secretary under the Transport Ministry, mentioned that both Vilnius and Kaunas municipalities have promised to contribute to the entrance of Rynair to Lithuania by participating in building of the required infrastructure. Rynair plans to ship about 200,000 passengers a year. It is reportedly to be operating flights from Kaunas to London, Frankfurt and Stockholm on a daily base. As of now, low-cost flight operators have avoided Lithuania because of a very tough competition there. There are 10 flight operators working in the Lithuanian market. ELTA

John

May 13th, 2005, 10:38 PM

Janis_LV

May 14th, 2005, 06:07 PM

I wonder what share of all RyanAir customers flying to or from Riga airport are actually going to and from Lithuania? :|
There already were some suggestions that if RyanAir would come to Kaunas, Riga would loose a significant amount of passengers. Ryanair also noiced that it would handle about 200K passengers in Kaunas. I guess it should be for the first year only ;)

well Cheap tickets (below 30 lats one way) are booked out all the time so probably because of lithuanians manyu latvians dont use Ryanair. If lithuanians wont use Riga-London flights there will be more cheap tickets available and latvians wil fly more. SO nothing will really change. that smy prognosis :)

ch1le

May 15th, 2005, 11:48 AM

John.. off topic question... how do you get from Riga to Vilnius? ;)

ch1le

May 15th, 2005, 07:24 PM

rofl... freaky :)

Swedish Skyways started flights Stockholm - Kuressaare... they will last the summer last flight will be on 3rd October. And Finnair begun flights HElsinki - Kuressaare...

Gatis

May 16th, 2005, 11:06 AM

wow. Kuresaare is new center :) (I know, there is happening a lot)

John

May 16th, 2005, 11:18 PM

John.. off topic question... how do you get from Riga to Vilnius? ;)

Why? I'd take a bus to Siauliai (where many of my friends and relatives live anyway) then a train to Vilnius. However I found some good ticket prices for LGW-VNO with AirBaltic and I'm gonna book this one. Though AirBaltic's online ticket booking system seems to be down so I dunno if these tickets will remain after it will be up again, this is pissing me off! :rant: :bash:

John

May 16th, 2005, 11:56 PM

Ah just bought the tickets to Vilnius on May 30th with AirBaltic... sweet home (at least for 2 weeks before going back ;)).

ch1le

May 17th, 2005, 07:53 AM

Why? I'd take a bus to Siauliai (where many of my friends and relatives live anyway) then a train to Vilnius. However I found some good ticket prices for LGW-VNO with AirBaltic and I'm gonna book this one. Though AirBaltic's online ticket booking system seems to be down so I dunno if these tickets will remain after it will be up again, this is pissing me off! :rant: :bash:

how much is the bus to Siauliai? and The train from there to Vilnius... im looking for alternative ways to get to Vilnius :)

Mantas

May 17th, 2005, 08:47 AM

I think there's a direct Euroline from Riga to Vilnius (costs ~10€)

And as John is coming, we can orginize another meet-up ;)

John

May 17th, 2005, 09:54 AM

how much is the bus to Siauliai? and The train from there to Vilnius... im looking for alternative ways to get to Vilnius :)

Ticket from Riga to Siauliai costs something around 4-5 Euros, then train to Vilnius costs about 9 Euros. It takes 2 and half hour to get from Siauliai to Vilnius by train.

John

May 17th, 2005, 09:55 AM

I think there's a direct Euroline from Riga to Vilnius (costs ~10€)

And as John is coming, we can orginize another meet-up ;)

Yeah, Mantai, that's what I was looking forward to, haven't seen my comrades for such a long time! :D

Maris VX

June 1st, 2005, 12:37 PM

160 954 passengers were handled in May in Riga.

630 302 passengers were handled in first five months (330 225 passengers last year) of 2005.

Maris VX

June 1st, 2005, 12:40 PM

Air Baltic plans to open new routes to Baku (Azerbaijan), Tbilisi (Georgia) and Odessa (Ukraine). Timing not clear yet.

Charter flights to Turkey started from Liepaja airport this week.

Gatis

June 1st, 2005, 03:03 PM

Data are excellent! In May increase two times comparing to last year!

I have some doubts... Will Air Baltic find enough people flying to Riga from Baku or Odessa??? Most likely they try to turn Riga into transfer airport.

LatvianGG

June 1st, 2005, 05:24 PM

This is even better! Because I think there would be maybe some 1,5 mln passengers per year in Riga airport if there would be only used by latvian citizens. As we already heard, Riga Airport wants to become a 5+ mln airport in coming years - and only by expanding the transfer traffic it is reachable. So I think with good advertisment in those new to come destinations (and also in existing ones) plus the same ticket rate policy AirBaltic would help significantly to reach those numbers. And it is very clever to look for new markets in eastern direction, there are almost no cheap airlines in f.e. Azerbaijan or Ukraine. Also those low rates and high safety standards might be a big plus for AirBalric in their struggle for new customers there.

ch1le

June 3rd, 2005, 02:15 PM

figures released for Tallinn airport ... til MAY

pretty darn good i might add!
APRIL was +56% at 112 026 passangers compared to 71 000 in 2004!
May was a bit less at 42% with 121 062 passangers compared to 85 213 in 2004!

Good good... the season has started (June July August) so i hope to see even bigger increase now! :)

ch1le

June 6th, 2005, 11:23 AM

Tallinn airport should start construction on the extension in 2006. The current I shaped airport will be constructed into a T shape. the number of gates will be increased from 6 now to 8. Atm the airports limit is 1.4 mio passengers, after the extension it will be 2.3 mio. Not enough imo.... but there is room for further extensions ;)

the current airport is pretty apalling - in size - it looks rather beutiful though ;)

http://img242.echo.cx/img242/362/blaablaa5np.jpg

Mantas

June 6th, 2005, 01:18 PM

Vilnius airport got 443,742 passengers in the period of January - May (grew by 45%), althaugh the number of flights grew by 47,2%. May was the least growing month with 114,763 passengers.

Gatis

June 20th, 2005, 01:19 PM

Just heard that Ryanair has taken the decision - to fly to Kaunas. Date not announced yet.

Mantas

June 20th, 2005, 01:56 PM

Awesome :banana:

thx for the news! :okay:

Gatis

June 20th, 2005, 02:28 PM

Link here:
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/06/20/afx2100348.html

LatvianGG

June 21st, 2005, 10:34 AM

Well those are quite a big news!!!
I hope they will not fly the same city's than Riga... But well, London for sure :))

Mantas

June 21st, 2005, 11:00 AM

Seems like it starts flying from this autumn :)

ch1le

June 21st, 2005, 11:33 AM

/\ Great news! Im still very eager to see and hear if some low cost airline will start flying to and from Kuressaare and Pärnu! (actually, Kuressaare has 2 international flights and started extension of terminal)

John

June 21st, 2005, 11:32 PM

Fantastic news! I'm gonna book a flight in advance, perhaps in a few weeks or so :D
Finally Lithuania will be marked on the European map of low cost flights what must be the best news of the year. :)

jimm

June 22nd, 2005, 06:46 AM

Could you explane that deal involving Kaunas Airport (or Kaunas municipal government)and Ryanair. Maybe i heared wrong but as far as i know yesterday it was said that Kaunas Airport (or Kaunas municipal government) will pay 400 000 (LT or Euros?) for them for their advertisement and other things (or something like that)? I think it's quite costy and i doubt that in other states Ryanair is being paid for their yourneys in some cities.

ch1le

June 22nd, 2005, 12:46 PM

/\ lohl... fantastic :)But all airports are paying the price, all have had to reduce taxes to lure em in

jimm

June 22nd, 2005, 01:28 PM

liutass

June 22nd, 2005, 01:34 PM

The thing is that the Municipality of Kaunas is going to pay 105 000 Euros per year for Ryanair for their advertisement expenses.

Nor only Kaunas, bur Vilnius as well anf Lithuanian Government (look at www.kaunas.lt)

The price of a one way ticket (Kaunas - London (Stansted airport)) will cost (76,83 Lt (approximately it's about 22,27 euros). However the same price will not be for all tickets, sa i understant later the price will partly be higher?

Price for the first week from kaunas 6.99 EUR, from London 14.99 EUR

Mantas

June 22nd, 2005, 01:47 PM

^^^ Not including the airport fares ;)

Mantas

June 22nd, 2005, 02:05 PM

Actually they are going to pay once 105 000€ for each new airline they open and AFAIK they plan to open 2 lines to London and Frankfurt (or Stockholm?)

Pigių skrydžių bendrovė - jau Karmėlavoje
http://www.delfi.lt/news/economy/automoto/article.php?id=6947816

mic of Orion

June 22nd, 2005, 02:33 PM

^^^
Sorry my report was a bit misleading ;)

The thing is that the Municipality of Kaunas is going to pay 105 000 Euros per year for Ryanair for their advertisement expenses. I'm wondering how's the situation in Riga or Tallinn?

Now a bit off topic :)

The price of a one way ticket (Kaunas - London (Stansted airport)) will cost (76,83 Lt (approximately it's about 22,27 euros). However the same price will not be for all tickets, sa i understant later the price will partly be higher?

People from this airline plan that this year about 100 000 people will fly to london and about 40 000 tourists will arrive in Kaunas.

this is appalling, and not to say illegal, Ryan Air should be fined heavily, and anyone who encourages such underhand behaviour fired. This similar situation happened in Belgium and Ryan Air was made to pay in excess of 10 million Euros in fines as a result of such behaviour clearly they haven't learned, if this comes to fruition, guys call EU commission and report it. It is illegal and would be persecuted. If Ryan Air wants to fly anywhere it has to because it is commercially viable not as a result of bribes and extortions from local authorities....

Ryan Air should be fined now with 10% of its annual turnover as the first fine wasn't adequate, clearly they need to learn how to behave...

Gatis

June 22nd, 2005, 03:50 PM

In RIX (Riga airport) Ryanair asked for heavy discounts, but happily they did not ask to pay them (at least nothing like this was anounced). At the end RIX did the wise thing - they made discounts for everyone, not only for Ryanair. But in order to get the discounts, airlines should reach high traffic rates. Ryanair and Air Baltic manage with this and get 80% discount, others don't reach these high levels - but RIX is not expensive for them as well.

When RIX made the discounts, Riga turned into a kind of "cheap airport" (happily not in quality). There was attempt to sue RIX in some EU court for breaking the European competitiveness rules, but they did not succeed.
There is no airport fare for passengers in Riga as well.
If RIX will not get 2 mio passengers this year, they might run in budget deficite this year. But in longer time they will succeed with such policies.

Tomas

June 23rd, 2005, 09:33 AM

ch1le

June 23rd, 2005, 09:51 AM

hehee.... Lithuania was so desperate to get Ryanair i see... ?

Tomas

June 23rd, 2005, 10:27 AM

Well, it was important for Kaunas to get normal airline operating in local airport. And RyanAir policy to serve not only capital cities but also other regional centres made it the best choice.

Also RyanAir forced to upgrade ground services of KUN a little bit as RyanAir airplanes will stay on ground only for 25 minutes, so they must be served very quickly. Of course upgraded ground services will make KUN more attractive not only for RyanAir but also for other companies. I hope we'll have even new passenger terminal some day :)

jimm

June 25th, 2005, 09:05 AM

http://www.easyjet.com/common/img/HmMapEN.gif
I'm truly amazed, i did not know that Easyjet flies to Riga (from Berlin) and Tallinn (from Berlin and London (Stansted)) :runaway:

John

June 25th, 2005, 01:41 PM

Kaunas could easily develop a much bigger airport which could even sarve as the main airport of the coutry leaving Vilnius airport for business and other travellers. Lithuania is small enough and with decent public transportation you could get from Kaunas to Vilnius in less than one hour so obviously Kaunas's airport would serve Vilnius as well.

jimm

June 25th, 2005, 03:32 PM

Some fresh news from Lithuania:
This summer Lithuanian new aviation company "Amber Air" (http://www.amberair.lt/) is starting regular flights from Palanga airport to Hamburg, Oslo and Copenhagen.
http://www.amberair.lt/upl/img/just%20landed%20at%20inn.jpg
http://www.delfi.lt/news/economy/automoto/article.php?id=6966561

Maris VX

July 1st, 2005, 12:34 PM

Riga Airport named one of the best airports in Europe

"Airports Council International - Europe" (ACI Europe) at the organization's annual congress in Munich last week named the Riga International Airport the best European airport with annual passenger turnover of 1-5 million, the airport's press secretary Andorijs Darzins told LETA.

The jury commended the Riga Airport employees' professionalism in all areas.

The airport's chairman of the board Dzintars Pomers believes this is a high honor, but also a deserved one. The airport has been working hard for many years, said Pomers.

This is the highest recognition that the Riga International Airport has ever received.

Minister of Transport Ainars Slesers (Latvia's First Party) is pleased with the award and believes that the airport's next goal should be receiving the award in the category of airports with annual passenger turnover of more than five million.

Slesers urges the Riga Airport to set new objectives to achieve, and become a regional and international flights center.

The winner among airports in the over 25 million passenger category was the Frankfurt Airport; Athens Airport took the "Best Airport Award" in the 10-25 million passenger category, Marseilles Airport in the 5-10 million passenger category, Sarajevo Airport in the under 1 million passenger category.

The judging panel was drawn from a respected group of airport industry journalists. Airports were appraised according to various disciplines - retail, security, operations, facilities, community relationships, environmental awareness and customer service.

Gatis

July 1st, 2005, 01:35 PM

Fresh statistics from Riga:

June - 180 557 passengers (+ 75,8%), 3 064 flights.
First 6 months = 810 859 passengers (+ 87,3%), 16 449 flights.

I believe that airport can reach 2 mio this year.

Mantas

July 1st, 2005, 01:57 PM

Nice figures and awesome growth :yes:

What's the growth for the 1st half comparign to last year?

Gatis

July 1st, 2005, 02:10 PM

87,3%

Mantas

July 1st, 2005, 02:13 PM

:hammer:

jimm

July 1st, 2005, 02:32 PM

Impressive results, waiting for results from Vilnius airport. Also i'm a bit affraid that since Ryanair steps in Kaunas from the 22nd of september the amount of passengers of our main airport might slow down :sly:

ch1le

July 1st, 2005, 02:32 PM

THAT IS INSANE!

ch1le

July 1st, 2005, 02:35 PM

lol

Mantas

July 1st, 2005, 02:39 PM

ch1le

July 1st, 2005, 02:40 PM

And Riga's :D

do you think that many lithuanians go by Riga? Oh, i hope so, hoping Riga will lose 25% then :D hehe :)

Mantas

July 1st, 2005, 02:43 PM

^^^ It's a well known thing here that Lithuanians form a significant part in RIX numbers :D

Gatis

July 1st, 2005, 02:53 PM

Good luck to "Amber Air". New passenger airline isn't everyday news in Baltics

There is 87,3% increase, why not?

January = 101 th (+ 100%)
February = 97 th ( + 93%)
March = 131 th (+ 105%)
April = 139 th ( + 85%)
May = 160 th (+ 90%)
June = 181 th (+ 76%)

June has been the "worst", if you can call 76% increase like this. And I am getting abit weary of those stag party guys...

Gatis

July 1st, 2005, 02:56 PM

Yes, there are many Lithuanians using Riga airport. The only way how Riga can keep going up - only by becoming a transfer airport and luring in new companies. Because LT airports one day will be up and running and then Lithuanians will forget Riga airport...

ch1le

July 1st, 2005, 04:34 PM

hmm thats huge increase, but i remember seeing different figures.

jimm

July 2nd, 2005, 09:29 AM

LAL carried 43,9% more passengers in January-May

During the five months of 2005 Lithuanian Airlines (LAL) performed 2160 flights and carried 186,622 passengers, which is 43,9% more than during the same period of 2004. LAL operated 2051 scheduled flights and carried 166,335 passengers, which is 34,8% more than during the first five months of 2004. Additionally, the airline operated 109 charter flights and carried 20,287 passengers on them.

During May 2005 the national carrier of Lithuania operated 506 flights and carried 48,081 passengers, which constitutes 18,7% more than during the same month of 2004. 42,792 passengers, which is 23,7% more than during May 2004 were transported by LAL on 478 scheduled flights. Moreover, the airline operated 28 charter flights and carried 5,289 passengers on them.

From the middle of June Lithuanian Airlines commenced operations on Vilnius – Tel Aviv route chartered by Israel Middle East Airlines Ltd. LAL intends to operate more than 20 charter flights on the route during June-September.

This year Lithuanian Airlines expects to operate more than 400 charter flights, 30% more than during the last year.

Lithuanian Airlines (LAL), the national carrier of the Republic of Lithuania was founded on 20 September 1991. All the authorised capital belongs to the State, 100 percent of shares of Lithuanian Airlines are under the administration of the State Property Fund.
http://www.noticias.info/asp/aspComunicados.asp?nid=76118&src=0
:ancient:

Janis_LV

July 2nd, 2005, 05:10 PM

do you think that many lithuanians go by Riga? Oh, i hope so, hoping Riga will lose 25% then :D hehe :)

"thanks" to lithuanians who buy full Ryanair flights many latvians can't travel now so hopefully now lithuanians won't use RIX so much and Latvians will be abl;e to travel more. Dont think the number of pasengers will decrease beacuse of the new ryanair line to LT.

And I hope the autumn will bring good news - new cheap destinations ... to southern europe.

By the way just noticed that ryabair will start to fly from Riga to London twice a day. Not bad!

Mantas

July 4th, 2005, 08:45 AM

So you are happy that RIX is going to get less passengers and receive less profit from abroad? And I bet Latvians has some advantage for booking tickets, so... ;)

Maris VX

July 7th, 2005, 11:58 AM

Air Baltic will start flights to the third largest Ukrainian city of Odessa situated on the Black sea coast from the 2nd of August.

Ryanair expects some 100 000 passengers in Kaunas in the first year.

Mantas

July 7th, 2005, 12:00 PM

Hehe, seems like they want to resume the popularity of holiday in Krymea. AirBaltic is doing great, that's for sure :okay:

jimm

July 11th, 2005, 03:35 PM

As nobody has posted yet... some fresh news from our three airports.

2005 January - June:

Kaunas: 17 480 passengers during the half-year period: 55,3% more than during the same period last year.

Vilnius: 582 570 passengers during the half-year period: 39% more than during the same period last year.

Palanga: 39 624 passengers during the half-year period: 43% more than during the same period last year.

John

July 12th, 2005, 12:10 AM

I wonder what growth is gonna be next year for Kaunas's airport as Ryanair will be operating there? Perhaps some 200%? :D

grendy

July 12th, 2005, 07:27 AM

I wonder what growth is gonna be next year for Kaunas's airport as Ryanair will be operating there? Perhaps some 200%? :D

Could be... or even more :D. Tampere-Pirkkala airport's international traffic increased from 2003 to 2004 by 85% (overall +63%) after Ryanair started to fly to/from here. Traffic in the year 2004 was about 500 000 and is still rising. Just for the comparison I found some statistics from 1998 and Tampere-Pirkkala's passanger count was 194 000 ;)

delfin_pl

July 12th, 2005, 08:54 AM

ShuMi

July 12th, 2005, 10:20 AM

^ A lot of Lithuanians travel from Riga ;)

Tomas

July 14th, 2005, 09:29 AM

Wizz Air announced direct flights from Kaunas to Warsaw starting from December 1st.
Flights to London, Paris and other european cities from Kaunas via Warsaw will be available too.

Mantas

July 14th, 2005, 09:42 AM

And the planned annual traffic is 50,000. Very good :D

Monkey

July 14th, 2005, 11:08 AM

My knowledge of Baltic airports is limited to those of the three capitals. Last year I flew into and out of Vilnius.

This year I had occasion to go through two Baltic airports twice last week during my Great Baltic Adventure 2005: Tallinn - Riga, Riga - Tallinn. My flights were early in the morning, so I don't know what things are like during the (probably much busier) times later the day & in the evening.

Both places struck me as relaxed and pleasant, with ample comprehensible signage, excellent amenities, and delightful personnel. :okay:

P.S. I had walked around town with Renx & Ch1le for a whole day, always keeping an eye out for a mailbox, and the only one I found in all of Tallinn was at the airport, right across from my departure gate. :)

jimm

July 14th, 2005, 11:19 AM

Wizz Air - hell, what is this?

Mantas

July 14th, 2005, 11:48 AM

Wizz Air - hell, what is this?
Some Eastern European based lowprice airline -> www.wizzair.com

jimm

July 14th, 2005, 12:07 PM

Thanks, Mantaz, very welcoming news for Kaunas :)

Gatis

July 14th, 2005, 02:30 PM

Ryanair will start flying Riga - Liverpool in 27th September this year. The frequency of flights to London would be doubled. There are expected at least 100 000 visitors coming from Liverpool yearly, costs start from some 27 EUR.
Later in autumn Ryanair will announce more destinations from Riga, currently they are selecting new destinations among 50 different airports.

delfin_pl

July 17th, 2005, 06:23 AM

so what low costs operate in Balts? is Warsaw your main hub now? (we have Ryanair Wizzair, EasyJet, skyEurope, GermanWings and CentralWings - 8 Polish airports are served by low costs) for those who are interested http://www.lotnisko-chopina.pl/?lang=en

jimm

July 17th, 2005, 08:00 AM

jimm

July 17th, 2005, 08:31 AM

Currently in Lithuania "AirBaltic" (low cost - true?) operates. In the near future in the Kaunas airport there will be "Ryanair" and "Wizzair" (weird name :) ). I predict that also "EasyJet" might come too, cause they come in those airports where the "Ryanair" operates.

Edit: And in the future, when "Estonian air" will be bought by SAS (if) then it probably will be merged with "AirBaltic".

Whose Homepage

July 17th, 2005, 08:39 AM

^^^

Yup! Quite likely. My flights from Tallinn to Riga and back bore all three airlines' names--with a different flight number for each. ;)

Gatis

July 18th, 2005, 12:06 PM

New player coming to Riga - Irish "Aer Lingus". They start flying Riga - Dublin in the end of October. Currently only "air Baltic" goes from Riga to Dublin.

Mantas

July 18th, 2005, 12:32 PM

Edit: And in the future, when "Estonian air" will be bought by SAS (if) then it probably will be merged with "AirBaltic".

And LAL is soon to be privatized, thus SAS may decide to aquire it and merge to airBaltic either ;)

Janis_LV

July 19th, 2005, 01:48 PM

Janis_LV

July 19th, 2005, 02:52 PM

From the group I am guiding this week there was one mister from Germany who to arrive in to Vilnius has booked the flight from Munchen to Helsinki and from Helsinki to Vilnius with Finnair. Although one hour later there was a direct flight from Munchen to Vilnius. He told his travel agent booked this flight and he never mentioned any direct flights from Munchen to Vilnius. Needless to say that travel agents know where regular direct flights are going from their cities, especially if it goes only about a capital of a EU country and not a provinvial town of Zimbabwe. So I am wondering why didn't the travel agent mention the direct flight. Could it be that there is some conspiration between the companies and travel agents? And actually it happends all the time. Most poeple dont fly direct and cheap airbaltic flights but change the plane somewhere.
When couple years ago I wanted to buy a ticket from Germany to Riga. I was offered a lot of flights through Prague, Copenhagen or Lufthansa direct but not with a word trravel agent mentioned airBaltic. When I told that there is airBaltic flying direct and cheap to Riga she checked in systhem ands looked liek surprised "Oh Ja, wirklich und viel billiger" I have impression thattravel agenst dont want to sell airBaltic or dont know it. I wonder why

Mantas

July 19th, 2005, 02:55 PM

Yeah, pretty much a conspiracy. Money talks here, most possibly :|

Gatis

July 19th, 2005, 06:01 PM

Just like with beer. Lousy "Aldaris" (hate their production) is paying the cafes and restaurants in City centrum for NOT selling other kinds of local beer.

jimm

July 19th, 2005, 06:15 PM

Here is an article (in Lithuanian): http://www.delfi.lt/news/economy/automoto/article.php?id=7114377 It's written that Danish low cost airline "Sterling" is planning to launch some flights in the the Baltic states and Finland.

LV ELF

July 29th, 2005, 11:26 AM

On Monday, 1st of August, around noon Riga Airport is expecting to receive its "One Millionth" passanger. To commemoate the event, the airport will host the press conference about its future development.

Meanwhile airBaltic and Ryanair have 61% of all passengers going through Riga Airport. airBaltic is the leader with 41.1%, and Ryanair with 21.7% is the second, followed in the decreasing order by Czech Air, KLM, Easy Jet, Latcharter, British Airways, Lufthansa, etc...

ch1le

July 29th, 2005, 01:25 PM

hmm weird... i thought it got 1 mio passengers long ago, you have been reporting 80% increase in previous months, if it was like that, shouldnt it be 1 mio already, or am i confused :P
actually it makes sense, to get 1 mio youll need over 100 000 each month.. Gongratz :) But its good that all the airports in our capitals will have a similar celebration :) :cheers:

LV ELF

July 29th, 2005, 01:50 PM

yeah it makes sense, because according to RIX website at the end of June they had 890000 passengers in 2005, thus the number of passengers in July would be approximately 190000, which seems realistic (180000 in June)

Gatis

July 29th, 2005, 02:56 PM

Why you don't believe to this 80% increase??? Over the last year the number of passengers in Riga airport increased sharply at the end of year - thus it was not that hard to beat the statistics of the first months of last year. But it would be wonder if Riga will manage to increase per 80% the results of last December - which I hig\ghly doubt.

Today military airplanes tested Riga airport: F-4F Phantom II (picture by LETA)
http://www.apollo.lv/upload/2005-07-29/52769/nato_lidmasinas1_LETA.jpg
It took them 10 minutes to come from Siauliai airport in Lithuania, although if needed they could come just in few minutes.

Mantas

August 1st, 2005, 02:01 PM

After the demand increase SAS is adding a 2nd route Copenhagen - Palanga. The first flight is planned to be at September 2nd, and the number of flights for both routes will count 13 a week (increase by 6).

Gatis

August 1st, 2005, 02:56 PM

This is cool about Palanga!
- - -
The millionth passenger of Riga airport was registered at 11:50, 1st August. She was a small girl, going to visit her mother in Copenhagen.
The Riga airport predicts to have 1,8 mio passengers in this year - a bit down from 2 mio announced by Minister of Transportation last year. They are busy building Northern terminal now (are reaching the roof constructions now), but before the end of this construction there will start one more expansion.

Mantas

August 1st, 2005, 03:04 PM

Even better for Riga :yes:

Gatis

August 1st, 2005, 04:33 PM

Picture of small girl - she got two free business class airline tickets for any direction and different presents. I suppose, they had some 20 - 30 people at this moment to choose from - and child here is natural choice IMHO
http://www.apollo.lv/upload/2005-08-01/52890/IMG_0963-500.jpg
In 2004 Riga airport got the 1millionth passenger in 13th December
In 2005 - 1st August
In 2006 - expected in middle of May

Gatis

August 2nd, 2005, 11:58 AM

Statistics of Riga airport, July 2005

Passengers in January - July = 994 877 (increase per 84,6%) (Tallinn = 779 637, Vilnius = 728 887)
Flights in January - July = 19 454 (+ 29,4%)
Cargo in January - July = 10 605 t (+ 69,2%)

Passengers in July = 184 018 (Tallinn = 133 493, Vilnius = 146 313)
No of flights in July = 3005

Flights to Odessa started yesterday, fully booked

ch1le

August 2nd, 2005, 03:08 PM

how do you know the statistics already for Tallinn, they dont have the numbers up at www.tallinn-airport.ee yet.. they dont even have June's statistics ! :P usually we get statistics much much later.. theres nothing about statistics in leading newspapers, business magazines and business papers... so how could it be?! :weirdo:

anyhow, how can Riga airport handle 1.8 mio passengers this year? Tallinn airports capacity is 1.3 mio and doesnt tallinn airport have the biggest capacity? Hmm

oh im so jealous right now!

hmm, read some info in Riga homepage, it says airport has a capacity of 1.5 mio passengers max, so how is it going to get that extra 0.3 mio on top of it ?!

ShuMi

August 3rd, 2005, 10:12 AM

From this month "KD AVIA" starts some new routes Kaliningrad - Palanga - Tel Aviv, Moscow, Dublin. Four „Boeing 737-300“ will operate on this route :okay:

delfin_pl

August 3rd, 2005, 10:17 AM

hmm, read some info in Riga homepage, it says airport has a capacity of 1.5 mio passengers max, so how is it going to get that extra 0.3 mio on top of it ?!

its not big deal, Warsaw's Terminal 1 has capacity of 3,5mln passengers but it has to handle 7,5mln this year :eek2:

Gatis

August 3rd, 2005, 12:28 PM

Wow, then Warsaw is a bit streched now... In Riga airport the calculated capacity now is 2 mio passengers per year, but at the end of the year it will be nearly doubled. By 2009 airport should be ready to serve 5 mio passengers, although it seems that the numbers will be higher.
Palanga (and Klaipeda) are phenomenal. I think - partly their success is explained by location - Vilnius (one economical powerhouse) is in one end of Lithuania and the short Lithuanian seaside (another economical powerhouse) - in another side. Now that's the real Lithuanian "dipolis" development!

delfin_pl

August 3rd, 2005, 12:36 PM

Wow, then Warsaw is a bit streched now...

exaclly its totally overcrowded but its a last year of such a situation, the new Terminal 2 (U/C) will be opened in the beginning of 2006 and in December this year there will be a second airport for Warsaw opened as well (the total capacity will be about 15mln)

PS.does Riga, airport have two runaways?

Edd

August 3rd, 2005, 12:45 PM

Mantas

August 3rd, 2005, 01:07 PM

Yeah, they want to leave VNO serving just the region of Vilnius and Kaunas as the main airport of Lithuania, althaugh there are some considerations to build a new airport between Vilnius and Kaunas.

DocentX

August 3rd, 2005, 02:11 PM

Yeah, they want to leave VNO serving just the region of Vilnius and Kaunas as the main airport of Lithuania, althaugh there are some considerations to build a new airport between Vilnius and Kaunas.

There is similar idea in Poland - there are plans to build main airport of Poland between Warsaw and Lodz.

Anyway - good luck :cheers:

ch1le

August 3rd, 2005, 03:12 PM

ROFL!!! TALLINN AIRPORT WILL ROXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

finally i found renders about the new airport!!!!!!! FRIGIN AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

the existing terminal will be widened by 18m from both sides,

and the nice part a new galery leading towards the airfield, and it will get 9 new skybridges!!!

http://www.aripaev.ee/leht/2936/uudis3.jpg

the portruding part will be the new part. the one in the back is the current terminal and there is also the plan of the current terminal, as you can see it has 6 skybridges

ShuMi

August 3rd, 2005, 03:40 PM

The design isn`t a beauty...

ch1le

August 3rd, 2005, 03:49 PM

follows the design of the current airport, its not a box, im happy bout that

ch1le

August 3rd, 2005, 04:12 PM

Gatis do you have any renders and or pictures of Riga airports new terminal?
and what will the total area be ? whats the area of the current terminal? <how many gates are there ? Etc

ch1le

August 4th, 2005, 02:03 PM

yeah, got more info about it, anyhow atm Tallinn airport has 6 gates, to that with the extension 9 will be added, total floorspace will be doubled, so seems like the new airport will be approx 30 000 sqm! Its optimal capacity (at which it runs smoothly) will be around 2.5 mio (atm 1.4mio)

Gatis

August 4th, 2005, 02:20 PM

I can not find any renders of Riga airport, there is very scarce information about their extension plans as well. But this does not mean that they are not ambitious.

Now they have got only 5 air-gates but Northern terminal will add more at the end of this year. Don't know how many. At the end of this year or in the next there will start next extension which will add more gates - thus in two-three years airport would be ready to receive 5 mio people in year.
Picture - before extensions. Northern terminal is added in the right side, it will nearly doube the size of the airport.
http://www.riga-airport.com/images/no_gaisa.jpg

There is prepared investment program for Riga airport for the coming 6 - 8 years - it is roughly 100 mio EUR. Currently there is only one runway, there is planned to extend it in order to make possible landing for the largest airplanes of the world, as well to construct second airway.
- - -
You shall not forget the business park on the land owned by Riga airport. Airport has invested in this land by building streets and communications and now factories and logistics centres are popping up there as mushrooms after the rain. Many of them relay on airport as their transportation service - it means that cargo will increase very much.
There are more plans but I will not tell them - before the visible steps towards the realisation they will sound like empty bragging.

LV ELF

August 4th, 2005, 07:05 PM

@ Delpfin_PL:

So far Riga Airport has only one runway, which, as Gatis noted, they plan to extend to 3.2km this year. They have applied for the EU funds to help with the extension, however the extension of the runway will go ahead regardless of the EU funds. The second runway will be necessary only when the airport will reach 10 million+ passengers a year, which unfortunately is not going to happen soon.

LV ELF

August 4th, 2005, 07:07 PM

The New Terminal will be a new 10,000 sq.m. building will be a three story glass fronted structure mostly devoted for non-Schengen flights. The architecture of it will be similar to the arrivals area and the passengier pier constructed in 1999-2001.

The first floor of the Northern Terminal will contain the arrivals, second will be dedicated to check in and departures and the top floor will be used as the new space for the offices of airBaltic. Additionally the third floor will have a garden court with the trees growing there.

Architectural Bureau "Arhis" is the designer of the project. They have renderings of the structure on their website. Please note that the renderings posted on Arhis's website do not envision the aircraft pier similar to the existing one. According to the recent decision a new pier for the aircraft with telescopic bridges will be constructed as well. Unfortunately, I could not find infomation regarding the number of bridges they plan to built at this time.

The Northern Terminal is at the bottom of the main terminal:
http://www.arhis.lv/data/projects/sabiedriskas/lidosta%20zt/b1.500.jpg
Another rendering of the future airport. Now the Northern Terminal is in the foreground. The space for the roof garden is clearly visible here:
http://www.arhis.lv/data/projects/sabiedriskas/lidosta%20zt/b2.500.jpg
Rendering of the exterior:
http://www.arhis.lv/data/projects/sabiedriskas/lidosta%20zt/b4.500.jpg
And the interior:
http://www.arhis.lv/data/projects/sabiedriskas/lidosta%20zt/b5.500.jpg

Mantas

August 4th, 2005, 07:38 PM

^^ Looks good :yes: There were some talks and articles that VNO is also getting and extension, althaugh don't know any data for it. Btw, VNO earned ~3 mio € (70% more than the corresponding period of the last year) during the last half after receiving revenue of 13 mio € (37.3% growth).

***

Other news that Lithuanian airlines (LAL) are being privatized and 100% of shares are going to the concorcium of Lithuanian companies "LAL invetment management". The concorcium consists of 3 companies with 70% share of "Fima" (IT), and 15% for each "ZIA valda" (real estate) and "Garantas" (construction). The primary price of company that has ~ 20 mio € debt was ~ 3 mio € but the investors agreed to pay twice that as well as investing ~6-8 mio € instead of 3 mio that was obligate.

Last year LAL carried 442 330 passengers (41.3% up) and 251 340 by the 1st half of this year (39.1% up). They also have plans to enter the cheap flight market.

pablonis

August 4th, 2005, 08:34 PM

Yeah, they want to leave VNO serving just the region of Vilnius and Kaunas as the main airport of Lithuania, althaugh there are some considerations to build a new airport between Vilnius and Kaunas.

few months ago i soo Aerodromas (for those who dont understand - it's a TV show about aviation), they showed an interview with minister of communication and according to Vilnius - Kaunas Dipolis plan, Vilnius and Kaunas airports ~ 2015 should reach the high where they simply couldn't grow no more (Vilnius airport is inside the city and there is almost no place to build new terminals or anything at all, area around Kaunas airport is also quite densely inhabitet), and then government is planning to build a new airport ~50 km from both - Vilnius and Kaunas, in Kaišiadorys district (they even showed the landplot and interview with some village people), ~15 km from Vilnius - Kaunas highway, according to minister it should cost ~3 billion (Litas or euros - i dont remember of which), by then Vilnius and Kaunas should already be connected with high-speed train, so it would take only 10-15 minutes to both cities, he was also talking about some kind of new small town (or smth like that) around airport which would do smth, new (not very long) motorway, some other infrastructure things, .... well it was a long time ago, i cannot remember everything :) , it really is a very long term project, let's he how it will go on

Mantas

August 4th, 2005, 08:41 PM

^^ Yeah, this sounds nice, althaugh we don't know how real is it :)

ch1le

August 4th, 2005, 08:58 PM

Gatis, Lv ELF thanks for the information, hmm, if they build the northern terminal (like on the pics) it would be similar in size to Tallinn airport (once extension is done). Whats the Total area of the airport terminal ?

anyway it will be exiting to watch the development of our competing airports!

LV ELF

August 4th, 2005, 09:32 PM

if they build the northern terminal (like on the pics) it would be similar in size to Tallinn airport (once extension is done).

What do you mean "if"? :) They have already started construction of the Northern Terminal. I took some pictures a few days ago and will post them here shortly. The terminal should be completed this winter.

ch1le

August 4th, 2005, 09:33 PM

dunno why i wrote if :D lol i know its uc :)

Gatis

August 5th, 2005, 01:34 AM

Thank' s LV_ELF, it' s really the first time when I see these renderings!
I once saw on TV that the pier of Riga Northern terminal will have 6 air-bridges, but I could be mistaken (seems there is no place for them). Don' t take it too seriously yet, let' s see how it will be.
Another thing we didn' t mention - airport will rebuild its "face" towards city as well. I understood that this will be done in this year - but now it looks that the works are shifted for another year.
- - -
It' s a pitty about the second airstrip of Riga airport - I understood that it will be built soon. Reason why it is a pitty:
- Riga airport is the cheapest for customers in the region.
- It was voted as the best European airport' 2004 in range 1 - 5 mio.
You don't see cheap + high quality things too often. So - many international airline companies are investigating and considering now whether Riga could be good as transfer airport for long-range flights.
Plans to build additional airstrip would be good encouragement for them.
- - -
But I am pretty sure that the management of the airport know what they are doing - a lot better than me.
- - -
I looked in Web - f.e. Airbus380 even does not need full 3,2 km runway. But it needs some other rebuildings at airports.

ch1le

August 5th, 2005, 08:35 AM

/\ yeah baltic airports can let airbus380 land, but terminals need double decker boarding gates :) and mby some reenforcing of the landing strip

_keen_

August 5th, 2005, 09:38 PM

Lithuanian airpoirts are dreadful :( On Friday i am flying to Spain from VNO and i hope that this fact will not ruin my trip. :moods:

LV ELF

August 8th, 2005, 05:52 PM

/\ yeah baltic airports can let airbus380 land, but terminals need double decker boarding gates :) and mby some reenforcing of the landing strip

The length of the runway for A-380 is not the main problem. The big issue lies with the weight and width of the aircraft. The runways and taxiways have to be upgraded in order to withstand the impact of the landing huge aircraft and accommodate its wider size. Even advanced airports like JFK or LAX had to be upgraded. I don't think they will be doing these kinds expensive reconstructions in the Baltic Airports anytime soon.

ch1le

August 8th, 2005, 06:01 PM

/\ yeah i know all that and if you look its all in my post too, just a bit shorter ;)

Gatis

August 23rd, 2005, 11:22 AM

In 2006 in Riga will start technical service for airplanes
In April 2005 Riga airport built the re-fueling station for transcontinental airlines.

In the beginning of 2006 there is planned to open the technical service center for airplanes. Initially it will be suitable for Boeing-737. I saw the enormous hangar, which is built among many other construction sites around airport.
In 2006 there will start construction of two more service lines for small airplanes.
Here would be built also training centre for airline technicians and pilots, regional storage capacity for technical parts.
In a few years there is planned to construct much larger station for technical servicing of transcontinental airplanes and engine repair facilities (last - together with Singapore Technologies Aerospace).

Developer - local "Concours"
Costs of the first line (to be started in early 2006) - 12 mio EUR
Training centre - some 3 mio EUR
Storage capacities - 3 mio EUR
Transcontinental airline service station and engine repair facilities - 40 mio EUR.

Expected yearly turnover - 30 mio EUR. Among the first clients - local airBaltic, ČSA, Ryanair, AeroSvit (UKR) etc.

In Europe there are 14 thousand functional airplanes. Riga will be the first to offer such services in Eastern Europe, costs would be cheaper than in the West - thus there is expected large interest. Capital renovation of one Boeing requires some 12 - 30 000 working hours. In Germany this hour will cost 60 EUR, while in Latvia - 30 EUR. Initially in the station there will work 100 people - most of them high-grade engineers.
Riga had Civil Aviation University, which was dissolved some years earlier. This explains why Latvia has got comparatively many active people in this field.

Maris VX

September 1st, 2005, 12:56 PM

202 024 passengers served in August in Riga airport.

2005 total - 1 196 901 passengers.

_keen_

September 1st, 2005, 05:04 PM

871 000 for Vilnius airport in 2005. A total increase of 34 percent.

LV ELF

September 1st, 2005, 07:43 PM

Yeah, like Maris VX said, Riga Airport served 202 024 passengers in August, 84% increase from the same month of last year. Moreover, this is the new record high, since for the first time in RIX history the number of passengers exceeded 200 000. :cheers:
During the first eight months of 2005 Riga Airport served:

1 196 901 passengers (84.5% increase compared to the same period of last year)
22 763 flights (29.2% increase)
11 600 tons of cargo (74.2% increase)

They increased their 2005 year-end expectations from 1.6 million passengers to 1.8 million.

ch1le

September 1st, 2005, 08:59 PM

thats just amaizing! :cheers:

Whose Homepage

September 1st, 2005, 09:47 PM

During the first eight months of 2005 Riga Airport served:

1 196 901 passengers (84.5% increase compared to the same period of last year)

Hey, 2 of those passengers was me! :wave: I arrived @ Riga Airport & left from there a few days later after a wonderful visit. :cheers1:

Gatis

September 27th, 2005, 12:23 PM

Irish Aer Lingus comes to Riga in November - there would be three flights per week to Dublin. Air Baltic already flies to Dublin.
Ryanair today starts new route - Riga - Liverpool, every day. Expected number of passengers on this route - 100 000 per year.

LatvianGG

September 27th, 2005, 04:24 PM

I've checked Aer Lingus ticket prices - the cheapest fares are even lower than AirBaltic cheapest fares... :eek:

ch1le

September 27th, 2005, 04:29 PM

i think that on the 21st of September Tallinn airport passed 1 mio... not too bad, but not too good either

LatvianGG

September 27th, 2005, 08:07 PM

Ryanair is currently choosing from two East-European cities where to develope their central plane service center. One is Rzeszóv(?) in Poland and other one... Riga. Polish city is so far favourite due to it's Tech-University (I thought Riga has one too :dunno: ) and long runway of the airport. The service center would mean some 500 work places and lots of Ryanair planes coming in. It would be biggest Ryanair base and would be accesable also for other airlines. Investments would be at least 10 mln € and would be operational in 2nd half of 2006. Final decision to be made in 2-3 months...

I remember that there were already earlier plans to develope such airplane service center in Riga, but I think that one was anotehr project, not this Ryanair megabase...

Gatis

September 27th, 2005, 10:05 PM

There are + and - for Ryanair base coming to Riga. Very big "-" would be almost imminent collapse of "Air Baltic", escape of some other airlines and much more unstable financial future for Riga airport. "+" could be increased passenger flow until certain level, faster investment and secured working places (until somewhere else it gets cheaper).
May be better leave them for Rzeszov. Riga is developing its own technical service complex and all the income from it will remain here.
These low-cost airlines are not that "pleasant" for airports.

LatvianGG

September 27th, 2005, 10:52 PM

Don't think it would destroy AirBaltic, it should be service center, maintenance and stuff like that. I doubt that because of this service center Ryanair would open many more routes. But sure it has both - and + .

Maris VX

September 28th, 2005, 06:05 PM

Air Baltic will open new routes to Dnepropetrovsk in Ukraine (this winter), Baku and Tbilisi (next summer). New route to Odessa already is very successful, also thanks to change of visa regime in Ukraine.

John

September 28th, 2005, 10:47 PM

LatvianGG

September 29th, 2005, 10:21 AM

I was looking for a return ticket on October 31 to Vilnius and November 5 back to London. The options I got (airport and all other taxes inclusive):

British Airways: £95
RyanAir £95 (there were options for £65 if I change date by 1-2 days)
AirBaltic... £130

Now guess which one I booked ;)

AirBaltic should be really really special in order to stay competitive with this pricing. :|

Well, my girlfriend booked airbaltic flight from riga to amsterdam (one way) 7 days before departure date for some €80.- all-incl. (4 days later it would be €70.-)
I guess London-Vilnius route is just very popular, so the cheap seats are sold out very fast :dunno: