Martinovs: airBaltic to focus on flight frequency rather than new exotic destinations

Andrejs Martinovs, chairman of the supervisory board of Latvia's national airline airBaltic, has outlined the company's future approach to route network development in a recent interview.

Depth over breadth

According to Martinovs, airBaltic will no longer prioritize boasting about a wide and exotic range of destinations. Instead, the airline's future strategy will center on what he described as "depth" — strengthening its position on routes that already exist rather than adding new, distant ones.

In practice, this means the airline plans to concentrate its efforts on its most popular and already busy routes, aiming to increase the number of flights offered on them. Rather than competing with other carriers on the sheer number of destinations served, airBaltic's leadership sees greater value in improving convenience and availability on routes where demand has already been proven.

Martinovs made the remarks in his capacity as chairman of the airline's supervisory board. airBaltic is a state-owned Latvian carrier and one of the key air travel providers in the Baltic region, and its decisions on route development directly affect passenger choice as well as the role of Riga Airport as a regional transport hub.

The announcement of this shift toward strengthening existing routes comes as the aviation industry more broadly looks for ways to use available resources and fleet capacity more efficiently. The interview did not specify which particular routes would see increased flight frequency or by how much.