Preliminary data from Riga Airport has shown that the Latvian gateway handled 2.8 million passengers in the first seven months of 2022, a 302% increase on passenger traffic in the same period in 2021.
In July alone, 606,000 passengers were handled by the airport (an increase of 104% compared to the same month last year). July also saw 72% of the pre-crisis number of passengers and 64% of the 2019 figures in the annual breakdown. The flow of transit passengers at the airport has also seen a slow increase after this traffic dropped significantly following Russia’s war on Ukraine. With airlines creating new transit route offers, more than a fifth (23%) of travellers used Riga as a point of transfer to further destinations in July.
AirBaltic has played a significant role in transporting passengers to/ from the hub, carrying 331,600 passengers in July from the airport. The airline also performed the largest number of flights – 2880 flights (56%); while low-fare carrier Ryanair accounted for 168,400 passengers (28%), operating 974 flights (approximately 19% of all flights served).
In total, July saw 5,100 flights handled at Riga Airport with 30,600 flights handled in the first seven months of the year.
