Latvian airline tries to win over new market

The Latvian aviation enterprise airBaltic is offering tickets for flights from Tallinn via Riga that are as much as a third cheaper than those starting from Riga itself, in an effort to take customers away from Estonian Air, according to this article in Postimees. The number of customers using Tallinn Airport has fallen by approximately 25 percent over the last year while the number of customers using Riga Airport has grown by nearly 9 percent. Tallinn Airport CEO Rein Loik considers it inevitable that the importance of Riga Airport is growing as the size and location of Riga gives the airport there a clear and strong competitive advantage over Tallinn. However, airBaltic also has problems – accusations that the company has received illegal aid from the government of Latvia are reverberating more and more frequently. The article also states that airport in Riga is also making unusually big discounts for its favoured aviation enterprise.