RIGA - During the course of 2007 Latvians will be treated to as many as 20 new flight destinations as part of an ambitious plan to transform Riga Airport into "the largest international terminal in northern Europe," Transport Minister Ainars Slesers announced last week.
Speaking to LNT television, Slesers said the new destinations would include Rome, Athens and Norway.
In the minister's words, "My main task is to turn the airport into an international flight center and increase turnover considerably. I am absolutely sure that we have all the prerequisites to achieve that."
Speaking in a separate interview to the Bizness & Baltija newspaper, Slesers said, "My stance is that Riga's airport should become the largest in northern Europe. It should be bigger than Stockholm or Copenhagen's airports, since we have the opportunity to connect cities of the EU and the former U.S.S.R."
Last year Riga Airport handled 2.5 million passengers, up a staggering 33 percent year-on-year. The airport has targeted a 25 percent increase this year, which begs the question of how many passengers the terminal can handle before reaching critical mass.
For now the airport can handle the growing volume, but in a couple years there are likely to be problems, the minister said. He is therefore urging his colleagues in the Cabinet of Ministers to approve a 500-600 million lat (700-850 million euro) expansion plan. Primarily the airport will need a new landing strip and passenger terminal.
Eventually, Slesers wants to see 15 million passengers shuffle through Riga's air terminal, and maybe even 30 million one day.
Slesers also shed light on his differences with former Riga Airport CEO Dzintars Pommers, who was sacked in January.
"Our views differed on how to develop the airport. Pommers considered that the airport for discount airlines should be located far from Riga. I consider it wrong to create two terminals, when the main one is not developed," the minister said.
"I have taken full political responsibility for the airport's development. And it is very important that my opinion coincided with the opinion of the management and council," Slesers said.
Regarding new destinations, airBaltic, which accounts for the largest percentage of passenger turnover at the airport, announced last week that it would launch flights to Stavanger, Norway on April 26. Currently airBaltic, which is 52.6 percent owned by the state and 47.2 percent by SAS, flies to Oslo and Bergen.
Also, the governor of the Adjara Republic in Georgia, Levan Varshalomidze, was in Latvia last week to hold talks on opening a direct flight between Riga and Batumi, a Georgian resort town on the Black Sea.
He told The Baltic Times that his talks with airBaltic chief Bertolt Flick went well and that there was a good possibility that a direct flight would be launched to Batumi, where an international airport is set to open this summer.
Varshalomidze added that the number of weekly flights from Riga to Tbilisi would increase from two to four thanks to high demand.
