The upgrade will include self-service terminals and more parking spaces.

In total, the reconstruction will add around 16,500 square meters of new space to the existing facility, while more than 18,000 square meters of the existing terminal will also be rebuilt, bringing a total terminal area of 52,500 square meters at a cost of €75 million.

The airport's baggage area, both for check-in and reclaim, will be made more spacious, a parking lot between the tram and passenger terminals is to be built on, and the border control and gate areas will be expanded. Departures and arrivals, now all on the same concourse, will be separated on different levels in the future.

While Tallinn Airport's passenger terminal throughput is currently 2.8 million passengers a year, the ongoing reconstruction will boost capacity to up to 5.5 million people per year.

CEO of Tallinn Airport, Riivo Tuvike, says this goal is not overly optimistic, as the baseline scenario puts the figure at 4.6 million by 2030, while history has shown that passenger numbers in Tallinn have consistently grown ahead of the curve of the European average.

The airport in October this year also reported its second-best monthly financials ever.

Speaking at a press conference Wednesday, Tuvike said: "Morning and evening peak hours are very busy for us, and those are the points in time when we run out of space."

At present, there is only one point where checked-in baggage can be placed, on two full-size baggage belts and one smaller one. Under the plans, this number will nearly double to five belts in total.

"The passenger arrivals zone will move to the upper floor, there will be a bigger baggage zone, and more carousels. In the Schengen area, the number of contact gates will be increased, and the retail and food areas will be renewed," Tuvike outlined.

The changes will give passengers more options and bring higher revenues to the airport, he went on.

The number of self-service border control machines will double and the gate waiting areas will be enlarged too.

The build period is scheduled for 2026–2028, across four phases, partly to minimize disruption.

The most extensive construction work is scheduled for 2027–2028, though phase one starts even in the final days of 2025. "By next spring, the self-service solution in the public area should be at a completely different level," Tuvike said, adding a new generation of check-in machines is to be installed.

The tender for the second, largest, and most extensive stage, for the baggage zone and parking lot, is to be announced this month, Tuvike said.

The fourth stage will see security screening, the VIP zone, and the main retail outlet to be expanded. Design for these is completed, but the tender is not to be held just yet. The changes are due for 2029–2030, but since the five security lanes operate quite efficiently, it may turn out that things stay as they are, Tuvike added.

Named after Lennart Meri, the first president of Estonia after the restoration of independence and who while in office famously joked about the state of the men's restrooms at the airport, the current terminal building was erected in time for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. There had been an airport on the site since the interwar period, when Estonia was an independent country. The early Soviet-era terminal, a little to the east of the current building, is still visible. The airport was already significantly expanded and upgraded in the mid-2000s.

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