INTERVIEW: RIGA AIRPORT why this is exactly the right time to do this rebranding. We want to control what’s going on around the airport by controlling our identity, our values and our brand. The rebranding has been quite a complicated process and took 10 months in total. However, we found it necessary because our terminal was built 50 years ago and the brand had not changed in all those years. It had the same colors and the same style. The new brand name of Riga Airport is RIX Riga Airport, or RIX R ī gas Lidosta in Latvian. The name retains the internationally recognized airport code RIX, while the full name has been simplified. Riga Airport is located in a very green area with a forest on one side and the sea on the other side, so our new brand is based on this feeling and the experience of landing at Riga Airport – you see green and brown fields, the blue sea and the dark green forest. The introduction of the brand has started and will be rolled out over the next four years. This year, the airport plans to introduce the new visual identity in more than half of the materials – in the digital environment, record-keeping materials, souvenirs, signs, terminal information materials, clothing, transportation and elsewhere. RIX Riga Airport announced a rebrand of its visual identity in January 2024 ABOVE What are your plans for Passenger Terminal Conference 2024? It’s a three-day conference with so many interesting topics. I’m excited to hear about the latest developments in commercial areas and also the latest trends in customer service. This is because it will be very important for us to understand what solutions to pick for our new terminal. From the event, we can take the best tools for security, check-in, biometrics and all the latest technology. My presentation will be about the design and development of Riga Airport’s new terminal and its facilities. In my talk, I think attendees will find a lot of topics that are at the front of their minds – such as sustainability, transitioning transportation fleets and installing solar panels – because many airports are in the same situation right now. What’s different about our project is that we’re doing all this at once, with three major airport development projects. This is unique because usually you’d first develop the airport, then the train station and then the airport city over the span of approximately 20 years. However, we are building everything at the same time. So this is our biggest challenge but also a unique opportunity to build it in a modern, customer-friendly way. I’m also looking forward to talking to other participants about the challenges of keeping existing airport infrastructure open while doing new construction work – especially those who have gone through it. Last year I had the pleasure of speaking to someone from Milan Bergamo Airport. The airport’s management team gave us lots of helpful insight into rebuilding a terminal while continuing to increase the number of passengers. We are carrying out more than 200 different tasks in our sustainability strategy How is Riga Airport incorporating sustainability into these plans for the future? We have so many projects that it’s difficult to know where to start! First of all, this new terminal project is completely redesigning everything we have right now around the land site area – it’s demolishing the existing air viaduct and building a new one. The design aims for BREEAM certification. This means that for the new terminal and the Rail Baltica station we will be looking for sustainable solutions and materials. For example, we plan to use wood for its sustainable qualities as well as its ability to reflect our local culture. Alongside this, we are carrying out more than 200 different tasks in our sustainability strategy. We’re in the process of changing our entire fleet of aerodrome transportation vehicles to electric ones and building charging stations to support these vehicles, These, in turn, need about 40 electrical substations, which we’re also now building. We’re also getting nine electric passenger buses, new jet bridges and new passenger generators to replace the five old generators. Additionally, our first solar panels are installed on the roof of the existing terminal and plans to extend the existing solar panel plant are already in place. All these projects should be completed by the end of summer 2024, so by then we will be providing a completely different service to our passengers. However, sustainability is inevitably a long-term project. Therefore, we are looking at a realistic timeline, and plan to reach net zero by 2035. This is because a lot of issues are still not clear and new environmentally friendly technologies are still currently under development, especially when it comes to, for example, heavy machinery needed to clear snow from the runway. In the meantime, we’ll be participating in R&D projects exploring the use of hydrogen in our operations. www.PassengerTerminalToday.com See Laila Odiņa’s presentation, ‘The new terminal at RIX Riga Airport’, on Day 1 of Passenger Terminal Conference 2024! 62 Passenger Terminal World APRIL 2024