Airport, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation, Transport

Airlines airBaltic, Ryanair and WizzAir have all made several flight cancellations in Riga. Langrats explained that many people are stranded at the airport.

Langrats does not predict that the situation will improve in the near future. Even when the flight restrictions are called off, those passengers who had their flights cancelled will have to be transported to their destinations, so time will be needed to normalize the situation.

Current flight information is available on the airport's web-site of Riga Airport.

 “This volcano eruption affects us a lot. Several airports have been closed. But today (April 15) Tallinn Airport isn’t closed,” said Loik, adding that the situation is constantly changing.

Sakkov said that so far Easyjet has cancelled its London flights, Norwegian Oslo flights and Estonian Air London and Oslo flights. Estonian Air added it also cancelled Copenhagen and Stockholm flights.

Sakko said that the airport follows the instructions of weather forecasters. “The scenario-info moves from synoptics to air traffic control service. If they decide to close Estonia’s air space, then we will act accordingly,” he said.

The eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in southeast Iceland caused a huge cloud of ash that drifted over northern Europe on Thursday, forcing the closure of vast swathes of international airspace and the cancellation of hundreds of flights.

Large areas of Norwegian and Swedish airspace are closed due to the ash cloud, and serious disruptions are also being felt in the UK.

Carried by winds blowing from the west, clouds of ash in the upper layers of the atmosphere are moving eastward towards Latvia.