Small LCC market share in Latvia is in decline – a portent for the future or a localised anomaly?

LCCs entered the Latvian international aviation market in 2004, via the almost ubiquitous presence of Ryanair, when the country joined the European Union. Their target market was economic migrants seeking new opportunities in the west (as it was in the case of neighbouring Estonia and Lithuania, the Slavic countries and Hungary and Romania also in 2004 or in 2007), followed by business visitors to Latvia - a former Soviet-bloc state - also seeking new opportunities, and tourists seeking new weekend break destinations.