Arnis Luhse

The first stage of the expansion of Riga International airport requires an investment of 78 million EUR. The current airport terminal should be expanded primarily, so that the airport’s capacity would increase to 7.5 million passengers per year with a possibility to increase this capacity to ten million, says Chairman of the Board of the airport Arnis Luhse.

«Statistics of the EU show that a person flies three times per year on average. Latvia is developing and I believe we can reach those six million passengers. I also believe that the Asia’s destinations will become cost-effective in time, and that there will be transit passengers. And then, it will be too late to think about expansion,»- Luhse said in an interview to Diena newspaper.

He added that it is possible to develop direct flight connectivity between Latvia and China, if this route is used by 20 000 to 30 000 people a year; right now, this figure is 4 000.

At the same time, Luhse admitted that decrease of serviced passengers is expected this year, and that 2.24 million passengers have been serviced in the first half-year. This figure was 2.385 million in the same period of 2011. Nonetheless, the total number of serviced passengers will exceed the previously planned 4.6 million and will come close to five million in 2012.

«We currently have two problems – the overall area is too small and there are not enough passenger exits to airplanes. Also, we are one of several middle-scale European airports where baggage is sorted manually, because there is simply not enough room for a sorting facility in the airport’s terminal,»- said Luhse.

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