RIGA - Although the bilateral agreements that currently regulate air flight between two countries give an advantage to national airlines will be void when Latvia joins the European Union next May, no airlines have contacted the Transport Ministry yet with concrete plans.
However, there are discount flyers waiting in the wings.
Ryanair, Europe's largest low-fare airline which currently has 125 routes that cover 84 destinations across 16 countries, inquired about the service prices of Riga International Airport a year ago, and head of communications Paul Fitzsimmons was recently quoted in The Observer as saying Ryanair was negotiating starting up flights to and from the new EU candidate countries, which include the three Baltic states.
"All the eight Eastern European accession states are within single-flight reach, and we are talking to all of them. They are clamoring for our business and are just as likely as any other airports to get onto our schedules in autumn or summer 2004," Fitzsimmons told The Observer in the beginning of July.
But Arnis Muiznieks, director of the Transport Ministry's aviation department, said there were no details known about the matter, and no negotiations had so far taken place.
"At any time Ryanair is in talks with up to 50 airports throughout Europe with an aim of opening new routes and expanding on existing services," Ryanair told The Baltic Times.
Currently, the closest Ryanair base to Latvia is located in Stockholm, from where Ryanair operates a total of eight routes to destinations such as Glasgow, Paris and London, among others.
According to the company's Web site, seats are sold for as little as 199 Swedish kroner (22 euros) to fly from Stockholm to Paris, and 299 Swedish kroner to fly to London.
In comparison, flying to London or Paris via Copenhagen or Stockholm with airBaltic, Latvia's national airline, costs 240 lats (368 euro) and 276 lats respectively.
Yet Muiznieks said there was a "high probability" of tickets becoming cheaper as aviation companies change their policies.
"They will change with the times," Muiznieks said, explaining that the structure of the service was changing because aviation was no longer an exclusive product.
"There will be discount airlines [operating in Latvia], but I think that it will not be a deathly competition to airBaltic," he said. "Our structure is based on a developed transit system," he added.
For a discount airline concept to be profitable, it has to carry a heavy flow of passengers who are interested in reaching direct locations and not in transit, Muiznieks explained.
AirBaltic said it did not have information of any low-cost airline "seriously attempting" to enter the Latvian market. If such information were to be confirmed, airBaltic would take a look at the product offered and its service concept, said Dinija Hofmane, a company representative.
"Undoubtedly, it will have to be taken into account that any company will be able to enter Latvia as the 'free-skies condition' takes effect," Hofmane said.
"If people's demands will change, the supply will change," she said.
Yet, according to Hofmane, practice had shown that people needed and wanted to take advantage of the services that airBaltic offers, from being able to change the date of a flight to reading international newspapers onboard.
Of the 13 routes that airBaltic currently operates, Copenhagen is the most popular destination with five or more flights daily, which the majority of passengers use to continue continental or trans-Atlantic flights.
Muiznieks said that because the discount airlines operated from smaller, secondary airports a consumer might not gain much from the deal.
He said that currently it is not possible to begin operating flights from any other airport in Latvia besides Riga International Airport without first investing large amounts of money in renovation.
Neighboring Lithuania has two operational airports in Palanga and Kaunas in addition to the main one in Vilnius, Muiznieks said, adding that he did not believe there would be many people willing to drive to airports in Palanga or Kaunas from the capital in order to catch a cheaper flight.
Meanwhile, Scandinavian Airlines has entered the low-price market with its own low-price concept. Called Snowflake, the program was launched at the end of March and provides cheaper flights in Europe to destinations that SAS does not serve or serves to a small extent.
Since the launch, more than 200,000 seats have been booked on Snowflake, according to a Scandinavian Airlines May press release.
Even though Snowflakes' aircraft and crews come from Scandinavian Airlines, the program was given a unique identity - the otherwise serene-looking SAS aircraft were given bright yellow tails.
