Air Baltic brings summer Riga route back to Aberdeen
Latvian low-cost airline Air Baltic today (5 October) announced its return to Aberdeen International Airport with a route to Riga for summer 2017.
The airline, which hasn’t flown from Aberdeen since September 2014, will operate three flights a week to the Latvian capital from May to September next year.
Carol Benzie, Managing Director of Aberdeen International Airport, said: “This is brilliant news from Air Baltic and it will be fantastic to welcome them back to Aberdeen next summer. We are continually working to strengthen our route network and I’m delighted to add the vibrant, cosmopolitan city of Riga to our ever-expanding list of leisure routes.
“The route will also provide Aberdeen holidaymakers with easy access to a number of increasingly popular destinations in the Baltic states, such as Tallinn, Palanga and Vilnius, which was one of the most requested destinations in a leisure survey we undertook with our local community earlier this year.
“Furthermore, Aberdeen is one of the top five most requested destinations amongst Air Baltic’s passengers, which suggests that this route also has huge potential to generate significant in-bound tourism for Aberdeen.”
Martin Gauss, Chief Executive Officer of Air Baltic, said: “Air Baltic provides the world with an important link to the Baltic region. As part of our Horizon 2021 business plan, we will improve our connections to key airports by opening at least eight new routes in 2017.”
The launch of the Riga route will coincide with the completion of phase one of Aberdeen International Airport’s £20million terminal transformation project, which will deliver a two-storey extension with new immigration and baggage reclaim facilities. Air Baltic’s return to Aberdeen follows the earlier announcement that Ryanair will also return to the city in 2017 with new routes to holiday hotspots Alicante, Malaga and Faro.