newstodate.aero
Aug 25, 2011 (newstodate): After another month of growth in passenger volumes at Estonia's Tallinn Airport, the airport is drawing closer to the point where handling must be opened for competition.
A total of 189,019 passengers were handled at Tallinn Airport in July 2011, a growth by 40 percent, y-o-y.
The airport now expects to reach about 1.8 mio passengers in 2011 - close to the two mio-mark set by EU regulations for opening up airport handling for competition.
Tallinn Airport has long been on the agenda of the Latvian handling company North Hub Services that had plans for establishing itself in Estonia already by June 1, 2010, later setting November 1, 2010, as the target, but eventually keeping plans on hold as it became clear that Tallinn Airport would stick to EU regulations and now allow competition before reaching two million passenger per year - which can now be expected in 2012.
Till then, airport handling remains the monopoly of the airport's own handling company, Tallinn Airport GH.
Until 2010, the Latvian carrier airBaltic had been building up Tallinn Airport as a sub-hub with routes to Stockholm and several destinations in Finland, and was performing self-handling sub-contracted to North Hub Services.
Latest newcomer to Tallinn Airport will be Flybe Nordic that is to add up to 74 weekly rotations.
So far the carrier has not revealed whether it will go for handling by Tallinn Airport GH, or chose self-handling by a sub-contractor.
A total of 189,019 passengers were handled at Tallinn Airport in July 2011, a growth by 40 percent, y-o-y.
The airport now expects to reach about 1.8 mio passengers in 2011 - close to the two mio-mark set by EU regulations for opening up airport handling for competition.
Tallinn Airport has long been on the agenda of the Latvian handling company North Hub Services that had plans for establishing itself in Estonia already by June 1, 2010, later setting November 1, 2010, as the target, but eventually keeping plans on hold as it became clear that Tallinn Airport would stick to EU regulations and now allow competition before reaching two million passenger per year - which can now be expected in 2012.
Till then, airport handling remains the monopoly of the airport's own handling company, Tallinn Airport GH.
Until 2010, the Latvian carrier airBaltic had been building up Tallinn Airport as a sub-hub with routes to Stockholm and several destinations in Finland, and was performing self-handling sub-contracted to North Hub Services.
Latest newcomer to Tallinn Airport will be Flybe Nordic that is to add up to 74 weekly rotations.
So far the carrier has not revealed whether it will go for handling by Tallinn Airport GH, or chose self-handling by a sub-contractor.