In December, 30,151 passengers travelled through Tallinn Airport, representing 13% of the number of passengers in last December. During Christmas, we witnessed a certain increase in the number of passengers, which can be related to people returning home for the holidays. Average seat occupancy on flights was 35% in December.
According to Eero Pärgmäe, the Commercial Director of Tallinn Airport, December brought along greater certainty on our aviation market. “In mid-December, when we received information that flight restrictions are abolished, the airlines could once again start drawing up flight plans corresponding to the current market demand. This gave us an opportunity to reopen several important destinations and the provided the passengers with a higher degree of certainty that the flights planned for the coming months most likely will also take place! There is greater hope for opening new routes in the coming months also due to the fact that the situation concerning the virus is already showing some signs of stabilisation in several European countries. “Nevertheless, today we need to make truly informed decisions when travelling, and the recommendation to examine the requirements and restrictions of the country of destination still exists.”
In December, regular flights were made on two domestic and 13 international routes; most of the flights were made on Frankfurt and Riga routes. Compared to November, we added one direct flight (Brussels) as well as one completely new airline – Nyxair – that commenced regular flights between Tallinn and Kuressaare on 21 December. As at the end of the year, there were altogether 10 airlines operating flights from the Tallinn Airport. On an annual basis, AirBaltic provided services to the most passengers (27%), the share of low-cost airlines totalled 21%.
In 2020, Tallinn Airport provided services to a total of 863,585 passengers, whereas basically one-half of the travellers passed the airport during the first two months of the year. Last time a similar number of passengers passed through the Tallinn Airport was in 2003. Annual service volume made 26% of the number of passengers in 2019.
As passenger flights make just a part of all flight operations, the number of flights has changed less than the passenger volume. In 2020, the number of flight operations totalled nearly 23,000, making 48% of the level of 2019.
Likewise to previous year, the vast majority of goods was transported through integrators (DHL, TNT, UPS); the volume of goods transported by planes did not change notably compared to the year before. At the same time, as the post and goods sent via universal postal service are transported only on regular flights, then due to decreased number of those flights, the overall volume of freight transport remained by 16% lower than the previous year’s level.
