AirBaltic brings forward Rhodes resumption

Latvian airline airBaltic is restoring a direct seasonal route to Greek island Rhodes.

Hybrid carrier airBaltic is adding a new leisure route to its summer schedule to connect Latvia’s capital Riga with the Greek island Rhodes (pictured).

The route between Riga Airport (RIX) and Rhodes (RHO) will begin on Aug. 6, operating twice per week on board an Airbus A220-300 aircraft. The airline last served the two destinations in summer 2019. Resumption of seasonal service this year was halted because of the COVID-19 crisis.

In a statement earlier this month, airBaltic said RIX-RHO would only return to its network from April 24, 2021. However, service is now being reinstated sooner than expected.

“We are pleased to offer our travelers another popular summer destination to the Greek island of Rhodes as well as connecting travellers from the south with Riga and beyond,” airBaltic CEO Martin Gauss said.

“We are resuming more flights while continuing to follow a variety of additional safety measures to protect our employees and passengers.”

According to the latest schedules data filed with OAG, airBaltic will face direct competition on the airport pair with Danish carrier FlexFlight.

The launch of the new 2,300 km route comes after airBaltic said it intends to operate 82 routes during the summer 2021 season as a number of suspended and postponed services are restored.

Five new routes are now scheduled to commence in summer 2021, instead of summer 2020, that will link Riga (RIX) with Bergen (BGO) and Trondheim (TRD) in Norway, Manchester (MAN), Yekaterinburg (SVX) in Russia and Yerevan (EVN) in Armenia.

Service from RIX to Aberdeen (ABZ), Scotland; Almaty (ALA), Kazakhstan; Baku (GYD), Azerbaijan; Kazan (KZN), Russia; Olbia (OLB) and Venice (VCE), Italy; Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Spain; Stavanger (SVG), Norway; and Thessaloniki (SKG), Greece has been canceled in summer 2020 but will be reinstated next year.