Only 13 km from the Latvian capital is Riga International Airport. It was built in 1973, in 2005 it was recognized as the best in Europe among airports serving from 1 to 5 million passengers a year. Having a runway at 3, 2 km, the airport has the ability to accept aircraft of virtually any type, including heavy ones.
Daily the airport serves many flights operated by such airlines as Aeroflot, Transaero, Belavia, Ryanair, Turkish Airlines, Utair, airBaltic and others. Without exaggeration, we can say that from Riga you can fly in any key direction, in just 31 countries.
How to get here
Thanks to its geographical position, it is easy to get from the airport to the city: the railway branch and bus traffic connect it practically with the center of Riga. On the taxi the way depending on the traffic can be overcome in 15-30 minutes. To reach Daugavpils (the second largest city of Latvia) it is possible approximately for 2, 5 hours.
Infrastructure
To the services of passengers in the airport premises the whole range of conceivable services: cafes, restaurants, airline offices and car rentals, bank representations, numerous recreation areas. And, of course, the Riga balsam - I do not want to buy, the prices are about the same as in the city.
airBaltic and Riga airport
Being the base for the well-known discount airline airBaltic, the airport performs, among others, the functions of an air hub, and very powerful. In this regard, the airport has a transit zone, the presence of which allows passengers to connect flights from Russia to non-Schengen countries without obtaining a Schengen visa.
The transit zone, despite its modest size, is equipped with places for passengers' rest, duty-free shops, cafeteria and a place for smoking. Being a national airline, airBaltic offered the government of Latvia a project for the construction of a new terminal, which should be integrated with the existing capacities of the airport and enable it to serve up to 15 million passengers per year. The project will be implemented with the involvement of private investments. In 2012, within the framework of this project, modernization of the runway begins.
- Airport site: www.riga-airport.com
- On-line scoreboard of the airport: www.riga-airport.com/poleti