A passenger record for Latvian carrier Air Baltic who has released passenger figures for 2019. The Riga-based airline carried 5,049,317 passengers or 22 per cent more than the year before across the network.

It is the highest number of passengers carried in the airline’s history. Chief executive officer of Air Baltic, Martin Gauss, said: “We are reaching new heights and offering better connections to people travelling to and from the Baltics. In 2019, we continued our sustainable growth path and showed strong results that will help us to pave our future path, strengthening our role as the largest carrier in the region.

“Last year, we launched nine new routes and by adding more Airbus A220-300 to our fleet, increased the comfort and reliability of our flights.” He said most passengers now fly on the Airbus A220-300 aircraft.

In 2019, Air Baltic operated a total of 62,748 flights, 12 per cent more than in 2018. The airline’s load factor, which represents the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of available seats, was at a level of 76 per cent in 2019.

This year, Air Baltic continues its expansion in the Baltics and will launch 14 new routes, including four new direct destinations from Tallinn, Estonia, and five new destinations from Vilnius, Lithuania.

This April, the airline will launch a new summer seasonal route between Riga and Yekaterinburg in Russia.

“Every year more than half of all passengers from Russia are choosing Riga as a transfer hub to over 70 destinations in Europe, Scandinavia, the CIS and the Middle East served by AirBaltic. By launching flights from Riga to Yekaterinburg, we are offering one additional gateway between Europe and Russia and vice versa,” Gauss stated.

Russia is an increasingly important market for AirBaltic. Yekaterinburg will be the sixth destination served in Russia and in 2019 Air Baltic carried by 16 per cent more passengers than last year on Russian routes.

Air Baltic has also broken the world record for carrying the most Estonian passengers in 2019.