Jason McGuinness said Ryanair will grow its Air Baltic-related Riga operation this Winter 2026 with 2 based aircraft, 16 routes and 40,000 extra seats. The schedule, announced on 17 Sept, gives Riga 6% growth after Riga Airport reduced charges through a growth incentive scheme.
McGuinness said the Riga plan includes more flights on 10 popular routes, among them Alicante, Barcelona and Milan Bergamo. He said Latvia is the only Baltic country where Ryanair will grow this year, while the carrier’s capacity in Estonia and Lithuania will fall by 25%.
Jason McGuinness on Riga
McGuinness tied the Winter ’26 schedule to lower airport charges in Riga. In his statement, he said Riga Airport reduced charges by introducing a competitive growth discount for all airlines, and he linked that move to Ryanair’s 6% expansion in Latvia.
The route list matters most for passengers already using Riga as a base. More flights on 10 popular routes mean the winter timetable is not a simple reshuffle; it is a capacity increase built into the schedule itself, with the added seats spread across existing demand rather than a single new route.
Riga Airport and the Baltics
Ryanair drew a direct contrast with Estonia and Lithuania. McGuinness said Tallinn Airport increased its charges by 70% in 2025, and Vilnius Airport charges have risen by over 30% since 2023. Ryanair said it is reallocating aircraft and capacity from those markets to Slovakia, Poland, Italy and Sweden.
That leaves Latvia as the only Baltic country getting Ryanair growth this winter, while its neighbours face a 25% drop in capacity. For travellers in Riga, the practical result is more choices on selected routes; for the wider region, Ryanair is shifting flying toward airports it says are cheaper to use.
Ryanair’s five-year proposal
McGuinness also set out a 5-year Baltic growth proposal worth US$1.6bn. Ryanair said it could double traffic in all three Baltic States, deliver 11m annual seats and 16 based aircraft, and create thousands of new jobs.
He linked that proposal to airBaltic, saying it will shrink its fleet from 54 aircraft to 36 by the end of 2026. Ryanair also said the Latvian Govt. has spent more than €550m on airBaltic since May 2020, including 5 equity injections, 3 loans and a compensation payment for Covid travel restrictions. The immediate change for readers is the Winter 2026 timetable; the larger test is whether Baltic governments and airports choose lower charges that keep more aircraft in the region.
