This is despite difficulty in obtaining fees from Russian airlines, and full recovery from pre-Covid flight numbers still not being reached.

EANS processed nearly 49,000 flights in the quarter, the bulk of them Chinese airlines. At the same time, several regionally important European airlines, including Finnair, Lufthansa, and Ryanair, have down-scaled their operations in the region.

In terms of flight volumes – 26 percent fewer flights were served in Q2 2025 than in the same period in 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year. A pricing mechanism was also agreed in Europe, which was adjusted during the pandemic, and it is this which is mainly behind the current high revenues.

Ivar Värk, board chair of EANS, said: "The European Commission decided that the regular mechanism, which was still two years of correction for lost revenue, would not be implemented. It was then decided to schedule it for five to seven years, depending on the countries. For this reason, our revenue this year and next year will be slightly higher than usual."

The authority also reported a large number of potentially unpaid invoices associated with Russian carriers. Estonia has to conduct air traffic control concerning Russian airlines flying over neutral waters near Estonia, to ensure flight safety.

"We also serve Russian operators, not on Estonian territory, but over neutral waters, and of course, the Russians have to pay for this according to the agreed mechanism, just like the other operators, but Russian companies have been sanctioned and the movement of money from Russia to European banks has been made more difficult; Eurocontrol is collecting this money for us," Värk explained.

Värk added that Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Norwegian air traffic control authorities experience the same issues, as they also have to provide service for Russian aircraft flying over neutral waters close to them.

EANS is a state agency which falls under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications' area of responsibility.

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