INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT TALLINN AIRPORT
Aviation activity in Estonia started in the 1920s. Selection of most important facts about Estonian aviation and Tallinn airport is presented below.
1922 – Estonian first airline “Aeronaut” was established. The flights were operated on the routes Tallinn-Stockholm and Tallinn-Riga. In the same year Russian-German airline “Deruluft” started their flights on the route Leningrad-Tallinn-Riga-Köningsberg. In 1923 Finnish airline “Aero” also started operating on the route between Tallinn and Helsinki.
1923 – Aviation port was built on the shores of Lake Ülemiste.
1929 – Parliament adopted expropriation act for the land and buildings in the possession of the successors of the company Dvigatel and Vagnerid in order to establish a public airfield in Tallinn. With the land, work and the construction of hangars the undertaking cost a total of 25 million cents.
1932 – There was also a winter air traffic from Lake Ülemiste, daily number of passengers at the time was 30-35.
1934 – Newspaper Postimees announced that the private airport of Tallinn, located in Lasnamäe, on the shores of Lake Ülemiste, where planes had the possibility to land on the ground as well as on water, could rightfully be referred to as one of the largest in Europe. “At least in Eastern Europe no airport can compete with it neither regarding the number of passengers nor the frequency of air traffic,” the newspaper wrote at the time.
1936 – On September 20th Ülemiste airport with a concrete runway, hangar and navigation radars was opened. Tallinn Airport Ltd considers the date to be the company’s birthday. 40 meters wide and ca 300 meters long runways that were completed in the first phase enabled aircrafts to take off and land in six different directions. Ülemiste airport was scheduled to be entirely completed by the year 1940 when also the construction of passenger terminal would have been completed.
1938 – The construction of the passenger terminal, designed by the architect Artur Jürvetson, started. The passenger terminal was finally completed in 1954 and it was in use until the Moscow Olympic Games.
1980 – During the preparations for the sailing regatta to be held in Tallinn within Moscow Olympic Games the runway of Tallinn airport was extended and new passenger terminal was built, the architect of which was Mihhail Piskov and the interior decorator was Maile Grünberg.
1945-1989 – The entire Tallinn airport was used by Aeroflot and all the flights took place within the borders of the Soviet Union.
1991 – On December 1st a state enterprise Estonian Air was established based on the assets of the local Aeroflot.
1992 – On September 1st a state enterprise Estonian Airports and a state-owned company Estonian Air were established on the basis of distribution of assets and functions of the state enterprise Estonian Air.
1997 – According to the Government’s Regulation of July 1st the division plan of state enterprise Estonian Airports was approved and on December 30th the following companies were established through division: Tallinn Airport Ltd, Tartu Airport Ltd, Kuressaare Airport Ltd, Kärdla Airport Ltd, and Pärnu Airport Ltd.
1998 – Reconstruction of passenger terminal started in March, during which the capacity of the passenger terminal was increased to 1.4 million people a year.
1999 – On December 12th President Lennart Meri opened the reconstructed passenger terminal of Tallinn airport.
Tallinn airport in 21st century
Tallinn airport is like the City of Tallinn – it will never be completely ready. There is always something to renew, expand and develop. With the acceptance as a member state of the European Union in May 1st 2004 we also joined the European Union Open Skies Treaty, which provided an opportunity for a significant expansion of flight operations.
With Estonian Government’s Regulation of 27th October 2004 Pärnu Airport Ltd, Tartu Airport Ltd, Kuressaare Airport Ltd and Kärdla Airport Ltd were merged with Tallinn Airport Ltd on January 1st 2005.
In 2005 the Tallinn airport became a “million-passenger airport”, i.e. more than million passengers were served during a year. The magical number was reached on 20th September 2005. On 28th December the same year Tallinn Airport GH Ltd, the subsidiary of Tallinn Airport Ltd, was established.
In 2006 two construction projects of Tallinn airport with the largest volume so far were signed: reconstruction of air traffic area and expansions of passenger terminal. These are projects that are co-financed by the European Union Cohesion Fund. Both construction projects completed in September 2008.
