Riga Airport's infrastructure developing a bit slower than carriers operating at the airport - board member

  • 2019-10-22
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - The infrastructure of Riga International Airport has been developing at a slightly slower pace than the carriers operating at the airport, Arturs Saveljevs, a member of the airport's management board, said in an interview to Latvian Radio on Tuesday.

"The airport's infrastructure is developing a bit slower than the airlines operating at Riga Airport. We are trying to catch up with them," Saveljevs said, adding that the inflow of passengers sometimes leads to the so-called bottleneck in the airport's public area.

Citing the airport's data, Saveljevs said that security checks at the airport take no more than 10 minutes on average and sometime they only require 2 to 4 minutes, but in rush hours these procedures can take up to 20 minutes. On October 7 and 8, when the queues at the security checkpoints were unusually long, the problem occurred because many employees had been taken ill, the airport's board member explained.  

Saveljevs noted that the airport has been seeing fast growth for several years already and that passenger numbers are expected to increase by more than 10 percent also this year, which is a very good result, but such fast growth takes a toll on the airport's infrastructure and staff.

As reported, on October 7 many upset people posted on social networks pictures of passengers queuing at the security controls area and expressed their resentment over the situation. 

Riga International Airport is the largest air traffic hub in the Baltic states. In 2018, Riga Airport handled 7.056 million passengers, up 15.7 percent against 2017.