2.96 million passengers passed through Tallinn Airport in 2023, which is 91% of the pre-pandemic level in 2019. Compared to 2022, the number of passengers at Tallinn Airport increased by 7.8%. 63,000 passengers passed through the airports of Kärdla, Kuressaare, Tartu and Pärnu.
During the year it was possible to fly from Tallinn Airport to 60 destinations with a direct flight, including 44 regular destinations and 16 charter flights. The majority, or almost a third of passengers, flew to the main hub stations: Riga, Helsinki and Frankfurt. airBaltic (26%) and Ryanair (16%) served the highest number of passengers.
A year of stable growth
According to Eero Pärgmäe, board member of AS Tallinna Lennujaam, it was a year of stable growth. “Today we have adapted to an unexpected and rapidly changing environment. The first and last quarters of the year were very positive, the summer was a little more modest than expected, but we are very satisfied with the year in as a whole,” Pärgmae said.
The summer flight schedule has been supplemented by the new seasonal destinations of airBaltic direct flights: Dubrovnik, Split, Rhodes and Iraklion. SAS has started flights to Oslo. Since the winter season which began at the end of October, airBaltic has added regular flights to Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Geneva and Tampere. Until now, the Athens (Aegean Airlines) and Antalya (SunExpress) routes, which operated only during the summer season, were open all year round.
“The winter flight schedule brought the largest number of seats for sale in history, which shows that our work with airlines has paid off and that our direction towards a balanced airline portfolio is correct and feasible,” Pärgmaäe summed up the year.
New for 2024
Considering the new routes and additional frequencies already known, a clear increase in the number of seats on sale is expected in the 2024 summer season from April to October and most airlines flying to Tallinn will increase their capacity compared to last summer. For the full year the airport expects a 5% increase in passenger numbers.
“In spring, two new airlines will start flights from Tallinn: Transavia France (the low-cost airline of the Air France/KLM group), which will fly to Paris (Orly airport) twice a week in early April, and the German airline Eurowings (the low-cost airline of the Lufthansa Group), which will offer direct flights to Prague from the end of March up to four times a week. AirBaltic’s new direct flights in the summer season are Billund, Malta and Burgas. Ryanair flies to 11 destinations during the summer season. The airline will also add flight frequencies to existing routes, which means that in terms of number of seats, Ryanair will offer the same capacity this summer as summer 2022”, he said he was satisfied Pärgmäe.
Among regional airports, the record was achieved by Kärdla
Last year, 63,000 passengers passed through the regional airports. The number of passengers increased the most at Kärdla Airport (35%), facilitated by the introduction of a larger aircraft on the Kärdla-Tallinn route. Kärdla Airport set an all-time record, serving a total of 16,200 passengers in 2023 (12,000 passengers in 2022).
In 2023, 42,200 passengers passed through Kuressaare airport (39,700 passengers in 2022), with a growth of 9%.
The regional airports’ only regular international service was between Pärnu and Helsinki from May to August and was used by 657 passengers. A total of 2,087 passengers passed through Pärnu Airport last year (2,888 passengers in 2022).
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2024-01-08 08:07:01
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