First-time semi-final entry of the Latvian national ice hockey team leads to special flights between Riga and Tampere. It has been running in two locations at the same time since May 12, 2023. The 86th IIHF World Championship will take place this year both in the Latvian capital Riga and in Finnish Tampere. Two cities in which the airline Air Baltic also has locations.

After yesterday evening the Latvian national team reached the semi-finals for the first time and that was a complete surprise with a 3:1 win against Sweden, Air Baltic announced today that there will be spontaneous special flights between the two locations. In addition to the regular aircraft BT357, flight BT4 departs from Riga for Tampere, Finland tomorrow morning at 00:3357 a.m. local time. At 6:00 local time, flight BT1357 will arrive at Tampere at 7:00. Both flights are to be operated with Air Baltic's own A220 aircraft. Since the special flights were quickly booked out, the carrier announced that more would be offered.

Yesterday, the German national ice hockey team coached by Harold Kreis advanced to the semi-finals after a comfortable 3-1 win against Switzerland, which after the group stage led Group B into the quarter-finals. There, however, a team with clear title ambitions, the home of the best ice hockey league in the world, the NHL, is waiting with the USA team. The team from Latvia also has a particularly difficult challenge in Canada. The North Americans reached the round of the last 4 with a 1:4 victory against the current world champion Finland and thus ended the Finnish team's title defense prematurely.

Both the Air Baltic flights (from €65,99 one-way) and tickets for the remaining games can still be purchased online. Air Baltic currently connects Munich Airport with Tampere all year round from Germany. The airline is offering 3 weekly flights this summer. After Air Baltic is currently en route with several of its own aircraft under wet lease, including for Swiss, SAS and Eurowings, rented aircraft are used on its own flights with "BT" flight numbers. For example, Hifly Malta (319 in Nice Air colors), Cyprus Airways (A320) and Carpatair (A319) are currently flying on behalf of the Latvians. Incidentally, next year the Ice Hockey World Championships will take place in the neighboring Czech Republic, where there will also be two venues in Prague and Ostrava, the next World Championships in Germany have also already been awarded, in 2027 the Ice Hockey World Championships will take place in Düsseldorf and Mannheim.