10m passengers travel through Helsinki Airport in Jan-Jun

The total number of passengers travelling via Finnish airports amounted to 12.3 million from January to June 2018, which is 1.3 million more than the year before, said Finavia, the company operates country´s airports.

The number was 11.9 per cent higher compared to the number of the stipulated period of previous year, said an official press release.

Helsinki Airport served a record-breaking 10.1 million air passengers during the first six months of the present year.

“Growth of nearly 12 per cent is sky-high. The direction is good not only at Helsinki Airport but also at our central regional airports. This development has boosted a great increase also in other airports of the network,” said Joni Sundelin, Airport Director of Helsinki Airport, also in charge of Finavia's route development.

Sundelin said there were over 15,500 flights more to and from Finavia airports compared to the corresponding period of the previous year (+ 8.3%).

For instance in June, the total number of scheduled flights to and from Finland grew by 1,600 (+ 4.8%) and the number of passengers by 221,000 (+ 11.1%).

Again this year, Sweden and Germany have retained their position as the most popular flight destinations.

“With regard to regional airports, the highest number of international flight passengers was to and from Spain. Furthermore, holiday flights to Greece have become more popular. The number of flights to and from the UK grew by more than 20 per cent, which results from Lapland charter flights. All in all, according to our statistics, there were 18.7% more passengers departing from regional airports to Europe at the beginning of the year than the year before,” said Sundelin.

“The threshold of 10 million air passengers was reached already in June at Helsinki Airport. More than 84 per cent of the passengers flew on scheduled international flights. The number of transfer passengers grew the most (+ 23.9%),” Sundelin added.