Baltic airports - how they do? (Archive)

[LatvianGG]

That's correct - Helsinki and Stockholm are both major transit airports. For example, a lot of latvian people flying to Northern America usually are flying through Helsinki or Copenhagen. But according to some information, soon there will be a straight connection from Riga to Northern America - the very well known and famous () Uzbekistan Airways are said to start a new route Tashkent - Riga - New York. A lot of people are still taking it more as a rumour.

@ch1le: Riga next year 2 mln passengers? There are some reasons to believe it:
- Ryanair starting to fly from end this year to 4 destinations: Tampere, London-Stansted, Frankfurt-Hahn and Stockholm-Skavsta later on. More new routes are planned to start next year. This will be the most important passenger stream boost.
- Easyjet will start to fly to Berlin-Schoenefeld. More routes might appear next year, but this is still not confirmed though.
- AirBaltic still planning to expand it's business.
- Like other new EU memberstates, Latvia is expecting a fast growing tourist curiousity - this means also more passengers to Riga Airport.
- Riga Airport is continuing it's started campaign (less airport tax) to bring new low-cost airlines which also might result in new airlines and new routes.
- Possible new route Tashkent-Riga-NewYork, still no new information about this.

Some reasons why there could appear some problems to reach those 2 mln:
- Rising oil prices might result in more expensive tickets, AirBaltic has already raised their ticket prices by +- 8 Euro.
- A growing lack of hotel space in Riga. If there soon will not appear numerous new hotels and accomodations in Riga, the ice-hockey world championsships might have problems with accomodating it's attendants. Especially lower class (2 and 3 star) hotels hardly needed.
- Tallinn and Vilnius might give Riga in future even harder competition for a status of Baltic's major airport.

BTW - I JUST LOVE THIS LOGO:

[Moolio]

[QUOTE=LatvianGG]That's correct - Helsinki and Stockholm are both major transit airports.QUOTE]

So, let me get this straight, Helsinki-Vantaa is relatively big airport, because it actually gets passengers who aren't even planning to go to Helsinki?! Well that certainly explains a lot...

[LatvianGG]

@Moolio: You got it... With this airports earn more money ;-)

[John]

According to the latest news, in October 15th (tomorrow) at about 3 p.m. Vilnius airport will receive 800,000th passenger this year. In the middle of December the number should increase to 900,000 passengers.

[Gatis]

It is even funny how our airports are close...
Data from 1st January - 30th September 2004, according to Latvian newspaper "Dienas bizness":

Riga - 753 925 passengers (+41,7% comparing to previous year)
Vilnius - 753 805 (+37,4%)
Tallinn - 725 049 (+38,6%)

[ch1le]

wicked growth! a bit surprised to see Vilnius so close to riga considering that The hard time lithuanians, specially some guys, giving it...

[jimm]

Originally Posted by John

According to the latest news, in October 15th (tomorrow) at about 3 p.m. Vilnius airport will receive 800,000th passenger this year. In the middle of December the number should increase to 900,000 passengers.

So perhaps during 2005 - 2006 "season" Vilnius airport will reach 1000000 or even a bit more.

[ch1le]

Jimm.. lol with a growth of 40 % it will be alot more

[John]

I believe Vilnius should receive up to 1.5 million passengers next year if the growth will remain as strong. Some new airlines and new routes are about to begin so I believe the growth rate should remain at around 40%. It's another question if RyanAir is about to come next year to Lithuania. They are going to use Kaunas airport which has excelllent runway (better than Vilnius) and is more centrally located. So this might bring Kaunas airport to a new life because currently it's kinda struggling between "be" or "not to be".

[jimm]

Originally Posted by ch1le

Jimm.. lol with a growth of 40 % it will be alot more

But you see as Ryanair is comming to Kaunas next september(?) that is why significant part of passengers may be be taken from Vilnius Airport. Ryanair will fly to 5 countiris (probably in Ireland, Britain Germany .....). Ant those countires are the main destination for our people that is why as i said it might happen that our Vilnius airport might loose some travellers.

[Moolio]

In Finland Ryanair uses Tampere-Pirkkala airport. I think they want to use small airports, because they are cheaper than big international ones. As I wrote the other day, Helsinki-Vantaa's serves 13 million passengers per year, while Tampere-Pirkkala only around 300'000. The airport is growing somewhat fast only because of Ryanair, while Helsinki-Vantaa tries to attract new customers with the largest number of direct destinations in any northern European airport, and by constructing the Airport city business district near the airport.

[John]

Originally Posted by jimm

But you see as Ryanair is comming to Kaunas next september(?) that is why significant part of passengers may be be taken from Vilnius Airport. Ryanair will fly to 5 countiris (probably in Ireland, Britain Germany .....). Ant those countires are the main destination for our people that is why as i said it might happen that our Vilnius airport might loose some travellers.

I don't think RyanAir would organize THAT many flights so that Vilnius airport would loose passengers (it's yet the question IF they will come next year). Also BA is (re)starting flights from Vilnius in spring as well as AirBaltic is starting flights to London so the growth should remain if not increase.

[Kommandant Mark]

You guys still gotta drink a lot of milk...to catch up to Brnik Airport in Ljubljana, Slovenia

January to September - 812.397 passengers
Growth of 11.3%

[_tictac_]

Originally Posted by Moolio

I remembered wrong. Apparently the annual number of passengers of Helsinki-Vantaa is actually 13 mio, and the airport has capasity of 15 million. I think the biggest airport in the nordic countries is Arlanda in Stockholm. IF I remember correctly Arlanda's annual passenger number is around 20 million.

Minor correction

Total amount of passengers - 2003:
Copenhagen-Kastrup: 17.714.007
Stockholm-Arlanda: 15.113.505
Oslo-Gardermoen: 13.646.890
Helsinki-Vantaa: 13.193.194

Copenhagen-Kastrup is expected to reach 19+ million this year...

[Romas]

Thanks for all for interesting statistics

Especially Hvala for Kommandant Mark

Originally Posted by Kommandant Mark

You guys still gotta drink a lot of milk...to catch up to Brnik Airport in Ljubljana, Slovenia
January to September - 812.397 passengers
Growth of 11.3%

Some more figures from Brnik / Ljubljana airport:
Source:http://www.lju-airport.si/eng/vsebina.asp?IDM=153
Passengers (1999 - 2003)
1999 - 895.540
2000 - 991.693
2001 - 894.130
2002 - 872.966
2003 - 928.397
What's about growing since 2000?
At least everyone can compare figures of growing passenger number in Baltics and in Slovenija.

Unfortunately only figures of two weeks of August were compared in website of Beograd airport.
It is impossible to compare figures of different years.

[Moolio]

@tictac: Thanks. I looked up some stats and yes, you're right Kastrup is the biggest. I can't understand why Arlanda's total amount is only 15 million (as opposed to Helsinki-Vantaa's and Gardermoen's 13 million), though. I remember vividly it being larger a few years ago (but then again I've been known to make mistakes in stuff like this). Perhaps it has lost passengers to some other Swedish airport? Do you know, by the way, what's the second biggest Danish airport?

[Kommandant Mark]

Nema problema, Romas

Yeah, the "growth"(if you can call it that) at Ljubljana Airport is weird...you'd think there'd be more of it, since the country just entered EU and more airlines are flying there.

I also can't understand why the number of passengers is in decline after year 2000.

[_tictac_]

Originally Posted by Moolio

@tictac: Thanks. I looked up some stats and yes, you're right Kastrup is the biggest. I can't understand why Arlanda's total amount is only 15 million (as opposed to Helsinki-Vantaa's and Gardermoen's 13 million), though. I remember vividly it being larger a few years ago (but then again I've been known to make mistakes in stuff like this). Perhaps it has lost passengers to some other Swedish airport? Do you know, by the way, what's the second biggest Danish airport?

Actually, you're right about Stockholm-Arlanda having more passengers a few years back, same with Copenhagen-Kastrup and most of the major airports within Scandinavia

However, I don't believe Arlanda lost any passengers as a result of other swedish airports gaining in total amount of passengers.
Airports around the globe declined considerably in terms of passengers and freight due to 9/11 and the financial instabilities

The secondary hub in Denmark is currently Billund Airport, it's located in Jutland and is expected to serve around 1.8 (1.6 last year) million passengers this year.

What's the current situation in Finland?

[Moolio]

The 9/11, right...

The second biggest airport in Finland currently is Oulu, which serves no more than 600k, or so a year. I doubt it will stay the 2nd biggest very long, though. Tampere-Pirkkala airport is used by Ryanair, and thus has been growing almost by the month recently. Of course the much more central location of Pirkkala also is a factor.

[Kommandant Mark]

Pleso airport in Zagreb, Croatia recently had its 1.000.000th passenger