Latvian-based carrier airBaltic has announced record passenger numbers and load factors for October 2024. In a busy week for the carrier, the airline has also received its 49th Airbus A220-300 direct from the manufacturer, with many more still to follow.
During October 2024, the airline transported 470,800 passengers across its network, a figure that represents an 11% increase over the same month in 2023, when the carrier flew 424,600 passengers. Meanwhile, the carrier’s networkwide average load factor reached 84.1%, up 5.7 percentage points over October 2023. Overall, the company operated 4,160 flights for the month of October 2024, up 2% from the 4,070 operated during the same month in 2023. These figures represent the highest total in each category in the airline’s 29-year history.
So far in 2024, the airline has carried more than four million passengers (4,309,500 in total) and has completed 39,600 flights.
“Throughout the last months, we reported multiple records for monthly traffic figures, both in a single month and overall, in airBaltic’s history, highlighting our ongoing growth,” said Martin Gauss, President and CEO of airBaltic. “Recently, we launched nine new routes for the upcoming winter season from all three Baltic States and established new codeshare partnerships with well-respected airlines. Through this approach, we aim to continue our growth story and provide the best global connectivity from the region to the rest of the world.”
airBaltic recently launched nine new routes for the winter 2024/25 season from the Baltic States – five from Riga, two from Tallinn, and two from Vilnius. Meanwhile, looking ahead to the summer 2025 season, the airline is planning further significant expansion says the carrier, adding 16 new destinations from the Baltic States – four from Riga, five from Tallinn, and seven from Vilnius. “These new routes provide customers with a wide range of travel options, catering to leisure, business, and onward connectivity needs,” says the airline in a statement.
The impressive performance figures come just days after the airline received its 49th Airbus A220-300 direct from Airbus’ Mirabel (Canada) assembly plant. On November 5, 2024, the new aircraft, registered as YL-ABW, arrived at Riga Airport (RIX) in Latvia, the home of airBaltic. The plane was the third Airbus A220-300 delivered to the carrier in 2024, and almost completes the carrier’s initial order for 50 Airbus A220-300. However, in November 2023, the company announced a firm purchase agreement for 30 additional aircraft of the same type with purchase rights for an additional 20 aircraft in the future.
So far, since the arrival of its first A220-300 in May 2020, airBaltic states it has carried more than 17,880,000 passengers on its fleet of A220s, has completed nearly 192,000 flights and has flown 422,000 block hours. The carrier operates just this single type of airplane, which helps the airline to “minimize complexity and to benefit from the additional efficiencies provided by the aircraft.”
AirBaltic currently operates more than 130 routes from Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Tampere, and, seasonally, Gran Canaria, offering connections to a wide range of destinations in the airline’s route network in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Caucasus region.