I will start this report with some pictures and description of Riga's city centre where we spent a couple of hours between the flights. The access to the city is very simple as there are bus number 22 and minibus number 222 running frequently. We took the minibus and in about 25 minutes we reached the Old Town. It was a very cold and snowy day, yet everything in Riga seemed to work as usual, they seemed to be used to these weather conditions.
First we went to the bridge for the panoramic view of the city. The Daugava river was completely frozen.
Then we headed to the main Old Town square to see the House of the Blackheads that we sadly found closed to the visitors as it is Latvia's president office. Nice office…
Saint Peter's church seems to be Riga's most expensive monument (9 euro!) but it has the only viewing terrace open in the winter so there was no choice if we wanted to see the city from above. It was bloody cold and windy up there but the view was splendid!
We paid much less for the cathedral (3 euro) and it was much more interesting inside than Saint Peter's church even though it has no viewing terrace.
The Three Brothers, one of my favourite places in Riga :)
The Opera
The Old Town looks marvellous at night.
Finally we go back to the airport taking the minibus number 222 again. The landside of the terminal is small and seems almost totally owned by airBaltic.
We take our bags from the storage and get quickly through the security check which - unlike in WAW - is very nice, the staff is polite and friendly. The airport seems quite busy, lots of people arrive, mainly with BT flights and seem to wait for their connecting flight as we do. Our boarding gate is A1 situated in some kind of a satellite building connected to the main terminl with a corridor. RIX may seem small but it has a lot of space that you can't see at first: some boarding gates are located downstairs, some in this round satellite building and the new part of the airport is going to to be ready in a minute. That will definitely help as sometimes it is really overcrowded.
Our Q400 being prepared for departure
Boarding starts a little bit late, waiting for all the pax and deicing takes more time and finally we leave almost 15 minutes later than scheduled. There are 2 FAs on this flight, again one male and one female. Invitation and safety demo are in Latvian and English, then there is a recorded announcement in Estonian. More than 75% of seats are occupied, there is nobody in the business class.
It's not a very pleasant flight as I'm tired and the vibrating fuselage of Q400 pisses me off. There are thick clouds full of snow that we pass both taking off and 40 minutes later landing that make this small aircraft shake. Minutes before landing the falling snow looks like thick streams of water. It's good to be on the ground!
In the next part I will post some pictures from beautiful Tallinn and describe the flight back to Riga.
Thanks for reading!
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Verdict
Air Baltic
7.1/10
Cabin9.5
Cabin crew9.0
Entertainment/wifi5.0
Buy-on-board menu5.0
Riga - RIX
8.8/10
Efficiency10.0
Access9.5
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.5
Tallinn - TLL
9.8/10
Efficiency9.0
Access10.0
Services10.0
Cleanliness10.0
Conclusion
Again it was a nice flight with BT despite the turbulence that aren't of course airlines fault. We safely reached our destination and everything worked well. Riga's airport is small but well organized even in the winter conditions.
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Thanks for sharing this FR, another beautiful bonus!
I don't find Dash8s to be that shaky, maybe it was the weather that night. Are there are a lot of night operations by BT? I've noticed this with some other carriers in Europe with small fleets that they operate a lot of flights between 11pm and 1am.
Yes, I think it was the weather that day and I was tired too so I must have been more sensitive.
As far as I noticed they do operate some night flights but mostly to some close destinations like TLL, VNO, PLQ where they fly from back to Riga early in the morning. LOT for example operates night flights to Tel Aviv, Larnaca, Tibilisi, Erevan, it seems quite common for the Middle East destinations. This flight to TLL should have ended at 23:59 but we arrived late due to late departure.
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98 reviews
5 Comments
Nice but not safe flight, conditions were not perfect anyway!
This bonus is really good, Riga is better than i thought.
Waiting for your next report and bonus!
Thanks for this short report !
I don't find Dash8s to be that shaky, maybe it was the weather that night. Are there are a lot of night operations by BT? I've noticed this with some other carriers in Europe with small fleets that they operate a lot of flights between 11pm and 1am.
Yes, I think it was the weather that day and I was tired too so I must have been more sensitive.
As far as I noticed they do operate some night flights but mostly to some close destinations like TLL, VNO, PLQ where they fly from back to Riga early in the morning. LOT for example operates night flights to Tel Aviv, Larnaca, Tibilisi, Erevan, it seems quite common for the Middle East destinations. This flight to TLL should have ended at 23:59 but we arrived late due to late departure.
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