Latvijas gaisa satiksme's new Riga Airport (RIX) air traffic control tower is scheduled for completion by December 31, 2026
Dāvids Tauriņš, chair of the board of Latvian ANSP Latvijas gaisa satiksme (LGS), Ivars Sviridovs, member of the board of LGS, and Sandris Apsītis, chair of the board of construction company Aimasa, have signed a contract for the reconstruction of the LGS building at Riga Airport.
According to the newly signed contract, work will begin no later than January 1, 2025. The contractor will begin all the required planning, drafting and approval of documents, as well as the setting up of the construction site and other work (removal and replacement of MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering) systems, localised reconstruction of part of the existing building, etc.) this year. Construction is scheduled to be completed by 31 December 2026.
The total contracted amount is €51,255,844.90 (without VAT). The project has also been allocated funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) – €26.263m for upgrading and adapting infrastructure for dual use, i.e. for both civilian and military purposes. LGS will also receive a loan of €25m with favourable conditions from the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB).
“We are very happy that this long-awaited project, which is of great importance to LGS, Riga Airport and the aviation sector in Latvia in general, is, at last, imminent. As a result of a procurement negotiation procedure a contractor has been selected who has undertaken to perform the construction works within 24 months allowing LGS to then install state-of-the-art equipment in the tower and begin using it for air traffic control,” Latvijas gaisa satiksme’s Dāvids Tauriņš said.
Changes to ATC at Riga
The existing, 27m tall, LGS ATC tower was built in 1973. With the airport evolving, it has become increasingly difficult to fulfil its needs and introduce innovative technologies with the existing ATC tower. It will, however, remain as a back-up tower at Riga Airport.
In turn, the new ATC tower is a prerequisite for the further successful development of Riga Airport to ensure that it can keep providing the safest and most profitable air traffic services at the busiest airport in the Baltics. The upgrading of the air traffic control infrastructure will ensure aligned development of the infrastructure of the airport and the company, the integration of civilian and military air traffic and improved civilian-military mobility.
New technologies to be installed during the upgrade will allow the introduction of a Remote control tower, making it possible to remotely control take-off and landing of aircraft at other airfields in Latvia. The technological features of the tower will help optimise the interaction of arrivals and departures, as well as the layout of horizontal and vertical separation, thus reducing fuel consumption, emissions, and noise, and ensuring service continuity as much as possible.
The new ATC tower will stand at 49.9m on a site of 5,958m2 and with a total interior area of 12,185.8m2. The tower will have one level underground and nine above ground.
The new LGS ATC tower was designed by ATCT 2020, which consists of architectural firm Arhis Arhitekti, Leo A Daly, a US architecture, engineering, and interior design company, and Marcos Costilla Aviation Consulting Group.
