airBaltic recognised as Latvia’s leading exporter

Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Economics Minister Artis Kampars last week hailed the airBaltic airline for its achievements in the field of exports.

airBaltic president and executive director Bertolt Flick:  “This year, airBaltic exports will be worth more than EUR 350 million, and that is approximately 8% of all of Latvia’s export turnover.”

In 2009, the number of airBaltic passengers in R?ga increased by 30%, and according to Eurostat, Latvia was the only country in the EU, which had a growing aviation sector last year.  Over the course of that year, 1,000 new jobs were created by the aviation industry.  Since the launch of the successful LIVE R?ga tourism promotion campaign, 5,000 new jobs have been created in the Latvian capital city’s tourism sector, and the number of guests at the city’s hotels has risen by 35%.

During the summer of 2010, airBaltic has offered flights from R?ga to 80 cities in Europe, the Middle East and the CIS.  This is more than the routes offered by SAS in Stockholm (54 destinations), Finnair in Helsinki (72 destinations), and Norwegian in Oslo (70 destinations).

After launching 27 new routes this summer, airBaltic became Europe’s largest flag carrier in terms of new routes and received the anna.aero ANNIES award for this fact. airBaltic serves 80 destinations from its home base at Riga, Latvia. From every one of these, airBaltic offers convenient connections via North Hub Riga to its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, CIS and the Middle East.