Latvia’s airBaltic to build Riga cargo hub

airBaltic (BT, Riga) will build what it called the largest dedicated air cargo handling facility in the Baltics, having signed a land reservation agreement with Riga Airport for a new Baltic Cargo Hub, the Latvian flag carrier announced in a statement on April 22. The 96.14%-state-owned airline was the winner of a tender the airport issued in November 2020, to lease the land and construct a multimodal logistics centre. According to initial plans, the size of the Baltic Cargo Hub will be 6,000 square metres. Construction on the hangar is scheduled to begin in late 2022 for completion by early 2024, and the project will be “financed through banks and operated by Baltijas Kravu centrs SIA,” a cargo handling subsidiary of airBaltic, the carrier said. “For years, airBaltic Cargo has provided essential mail and cargo shipments to and from Latvia using its existing hangar. However, the hangar will be demolished to make room for the Rail Baltica tracks,” airBaltic CEO Martin Gauss explained, referring to an ongoing railway infrastructure project to link Finland and the Baltic countries with Poland and the rest of Europe. He added that the Baltic Cargo Hub would enable the company to handle more than 30,000 tonnes of cargo per year. “The volume of belly cargo forms a significant part of the cargo carriage at Riga Airport, and airBaltic is the largest carrier of this type of cargo,” the airport’s chairwoman Laila Odiņa elaborated, adding that the new centre would clearly benefit both the airport and the airline. The announcement came a week after airBaltic posted its financial results for 2020, revealing a net loss for the year of EUR265 million euros (USD320 million), up from a EUR9 million (USD11 million) loss in 2019. Revenues slumped by 72% to EUR143 million (USD172 million), and passenger numbers fell from five million in 2019 to 1.34 million. Gauss said that for 2021 travel demand “is now slightly showing some positive signals” and that “we have developed several scenarios for the gradual market recovery. […] To support our future return to profit, we will accept an additional seven A220-300 aircraft in 2021.” According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, airBaltic currently operates a fleet of twenty-five Airbus A220-300s with twenty-five more of the type to be delivered.