"Tallinn Airport has reached the fourth interim stage with the currently ongoing air traffic area development project, which is to last until Oct. 12," Tallinn Airport spokesperson Priit Koff told BNS. "Until then, the airport will be closed to air traffic five nights per week from 12:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. and only open overnight on Tuesday and Friday."

According to the spokesperson, as of the beginnig of the month, 92 percent of construction work at the airport has been completed, and, according to the plan, the transition to a new runway light system will take place on Oct. 12. Once the fourth stage is completed, only maintenance work across the whole facility will continue.

"Asphalting, which went smoothly, was completed on Sept. 1," Koff noted. "A few large-scale works remain to be carried out, such as renewing the asphalt layer of the middle of the runway at night, building and tuning the navigation lights system, constructing the engine test area and the deflector walls of platform M, completing construction work in all zones, and building snow-gathering areas."

In addition to continuing maintenance work, the airport will also begin construction on a parking garage, Koff said. At the beginning of September, representatives of the Estonian state-owned airport company AS Tallinna Lennujaam, KMG Inseneriehituse AS and AS LNK Industries signed a contract for the construction of a 1,100-vehicle multi-level parking garage for Tallinn Airport by 2019.

Listed Finnish construction group Lemminkainen and Tallinn Airport signed a contract last year for approximately €34.6 million in repair and expansion work on the airside area of Tallinn Airport. The contract covered both the planning and the execution of the project, including earthworks, paving and the reconstruction of stormwater systems as well as the renewal of airport technology, such as airfield ground lighting and navigation systems.

State-owned airport company AS Tallinna Lennujaam operates the airports of Tallinn, Kärdla, Kuressaare, Tartu and Pärnu as well as the airfields of the minor Western Estonian islands of Ruhnu and Kihnu.