During the upcoming summer 2026 season, Riga Airport (RIX), the busiest airport in the Baltic States, despite losing the services of British Airways and Wizz Air, is scheduled to have more flights year-on-year (YoY).
British Airways and Wizz Air leaving Riga
According to Airport Coordination Limited’s (ACL) initial coordination report for slots at RIX during the upcoming summer 2026 season, the airport will have 1,301 fewer movements during the peak travel period, losing out on more than 377,600 seats.
The loss of movements is largely driven by British Airways and Wizz Air leaving the airport, as well as Ryanair slashing its planned movements by 63% year-on-year (YoY).
That will be somewhat offset by airBaltic adding over 387,500 seats, as well as flydubai, Norwegian, LOT Polish Airlines, and SAS increasing their presence at the airport compared with the previous summer season.
Charter operators, such as Mavi Gök Airlines or SkyUp Malta, have also applied for and received slots at RIX.
British Airways’ last RIX-London Heathrow Airport (LHR) flight will depart on March 27, coinciding with the end of the winter 2025/2026 season, with the British carrier presumably opting to use its limited LHR slots on more profitable routes.
Wizz Air last flew from RIX in May 2025, operating a flight to Kutaisi International Airport (KUT). At one point, the low-cost carrier had a base at the airport, initially basing a single aircraft in June 2014. It expanded the base with a second aircraft in April 2015.
While the base was closed in October 2021, it continued operating flights from/to RIX. In July 2021, it had 11 routes from RIX, shrinking to five in July 2022, and to two in July 2023.
From November 2023, Wizz Air had a single route from RIX to KUT before exiting the airport in May 2025.
Rytis Beresnevicius
Scheduled growth at RIX
Cirium’s Diio Mi shows that during the summer 2026 season, overall flights at RIX will grow by 14.3% YoY, while seats will increase by 11.2% YoY. The tool also indicates that, for example, in June, six routes with flights in June 2025 will have no services that month.
Out of the six, two are airBaltic’s, one is British Airways’, and three are Ryanair’s axed services. While British Airways will end flights to LHR, even despite a codeshare agreement on RIX-LHR services with airBaltic, the Latvian carrier will still offer connections from RIX to another London airport, Gatwick Airport (LGW). Ryanair will also fly from RIX to London Stansted Airport (STN).
In turn, the airport will have 10 routes that were not scheduled in June 2025.
Still, as some airlines reduce operations at RIX, airBaltic has used the opportunity to slightly improve its yields. During the first nine months of 2025, its yield and unit revenue improved by 2.9% and 1.3% YoY, with the average revenue per passenger slightly up at €110.1 ($130.2).
Vilnius Airport (VNO), the region’s second-largest gateway, will increase its flights by 14.7% YoY during the summer 2026 season, with total scheduled seats up 18.9%, per Cirium’s Diio Mi.
One of the key differences between the two airports and their home countries is that Latvia’s gross domestic product (GDP), adjusted seasonally, has been almost flat over the past two years and has not risen above 0.9% during any quarter between Q3 2023 and Q3 2025, which is the latest data available on Latvia’s Official Statistics Portal.
The Official Statistics Portal of Lithuania shows that the country’s adjusted GDP, excluding a dip in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023, has been rising through Q3 2025, the latest available data.
Rytis Beresnevicius
