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Feb 22, 2024 (newstodate): Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all foreseeing growth in air cargo volumes in the years ahead.
   The expected hike in volumes from currently modest levels require a focus on handling and terminal facilities, also key elements in airport planning in the Baltic markets.
   In Latvia, Riga Airport will see the opening already in 2025 of the Baltic Cargo Hub, significantly increasing airBaltic's handling capacity at its Riga hub to up to 45,000 tonnes of cargo annually.
  Spanning an area of 6,895 m2 including some 5,000 m2 of cargo handling facilities and another 2,000 m2 of office space, the Baltic Cargo Hub is designed to offer full special cargo handling capabilities, including dedicated temperature-controlled rooms for pharmaceuticals and perishables, premises for dangerous goods, live animals and valuable shipments, while its design integrates essential functionalities for Food and Veterinary Services and a Customs checkpoint.
   The new air cargo terminal will be handling airBaltic's own and growing operations as well as all-cargo and freighter operators, and will especially be targeting an expected steep growth in e-trade shipments as well as mail volumes.
   In Estonia, Tallinn Airport will see construction works on its coming new cargo terminal starting in spring 2024.
    When completed in summer 2025 already, the airport will be operating a modern logistics center covering  an area totaling 5,250 m2, including 1,450 m2 of office space and 3,800 m2 of warehouse space, as well as offering loading bays for 57 trucks.
   At this stage, the tenant to take charge of operating the new facility is yet to be published, and the capacity of the cargo terminal is thus also not known.
   In Lithuania, the state-owned company Lithuanian Airports managing three of the country's international airports at Vilnius, Kaunas and Palanga earlier this year published a master plan 2023-2052, presenting three scenarios for growth in cargo at Vilnius Airport.
   The scenarios foresee volumes in 2052 between 27,300 tonnes and 52,800 tonnes, with volumes in 2022 at 15,987 tonnes as the baseline.
   The master plan expects cargo on full-freighter operations to grow to between 65 and 80 percent during the period, while 10,000 m2 have been reserved for handling of express cargo operations.
   However, the master plan finds no need for new terminal projects beyond the current two terminals jointly offering 5,325 m2 of handling space.
   Latvia's Riga Airport exited 2023 with a total volume of air cargo at 19,160 tonnes, down nine percent, y-o-y.
   Lithuania's Vilnius Airport generated 14,268 tonnes and also saw its total volumes down by 6.7 percent, y-o-y.
   Finally, Estonia's Tallinn Airport noted a steep drop in cargo volumes 2023 by 21 percent, to 8,753 tonnes.
   With small home markets, all three airports have been strongly affected by the closure since February 2022 of Russian airspace effecting imports of ex-China e-trade shipments, and earlier the Corona virus also caused steep declines in air cargo volumes as passenger air traffic came to a halt with the loss of belly-hold capacity.