RIGA - Latvia's airBaltic announced that it would launch a direct route to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad starting June 2. AirBaltic vice-president for corporate communications Vija Dzerve said the planned flights will be operated in cooperation with Russian airline Pulkovo Airlines. It will be the Latvian airline's 32nd operating route from Riga.
Initially, airBaltic's Fokker 50 planes will fly to Kaliningrad four times a week 's on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The trip between Riga and Kaliningrad will take 1 hour 10 minutes.
"Kaliningrad is an important business center in the Baltic Sea region. Our strategy is to connect Riga and Vilnius with all the key cities in this region and ensure as frequent air service as possible. Therefore we have been planning and wanted to launch flights to Kaliningrad for a long time," airBaltic said in a press release.
Until now, there have been no direct flights from Riga to Kaliningrad.
AirBaltic operates flights from Riga and Vilnius. Last year the airline carried 1,037,925 passengers, a 76 percent increase from 2004. In 2005 airBaltic posted 84.6 million lats (120.4 million euros) in turnover, a 64 percent rise from 2004, and incurred a loss of 1.32 million lats, which was 55 percent more than in 2004.
AirBaltic, established in 1995, belongs to the Latvian state (52.6 percent) and SAS (47.2 percent)
