Tallinn Airport served 2 166 663 passengers in 2015, making it the second best result in the airport’s history. The total number of passengers increased by 7.4 per cent year-on-year, the number of point-to-point passengers was the all-time highest.
Tallinn Airport’s Chief Commercial Officer Eero Pärgmäe said that the higher passenger volume may be attributed to increased supply due to tighter competition between airlines, and low fuel prices. “Last year is marked in the history of Estonian aviation as the year when Estonian Air ceased operations, but nevertheless Tallinn Airport does not anticipate a reduction in the number of flight operations or passenger volumes in 2016,” noted Pärgmäe. Tallinn Airport expects the number of passengers and the company’s turnover to increase in proportion with the Central Bank of Estonia’s economic growth forecast for the coming years, i.e. by 2 per cent in 2016.
“We do not anticipate substantial increases in passenger volumes in 2016 as we will be launching major construction works on both the runway and the terminal this year, this program will serve as an investment into increasing our passenger volumes in the future,” added Pärgmäe. 2016 marks the beginning of Tallinn Airport’s grand investment program, where between 2016 and 2022 the airport will invest over 127 million EUR, with 40 million EUR earmarked for this year. The main investment objects include be the extension of the runway, co-financed by the European Union; the construction of a new car park building for 1200 vehicles, and the expansion of the passenger terminal to increase the capacity of the aviation security area.
The number of regular traffic passengers decreased by 2 per cent in December due to lower load factors, even though the number of seats remained on 2015 December levels. The number of charter passengers was down by 10 per cent year-on-year due to a considerable decrease in charter flights to Egypt. Nordic Aviation Group was the airline with the largest passenger number in December, followed by Air Baltic.
Tallinn Airport served 9369 cruise turnaround passengers in 2015. “There won’t be any cruise turnarounds in Tallinn this summer due to the construction works, but we hope to continue with this successful project already in 2017,” added Pärgmäe.
