18.6m passengers use Finnish airports in Jan-Sep

A total of 18.6 million passengers travelled through the 21 Finnish airports in January to September this year, according to the statistics of Finavia, the company that operates the country’s airports.

A record-breaking 15.8 million air passengers travelled through Helsinki Airport in that period. The record of 20 million passengers travelling through Helsinki Airport is expected to be broken later in this year.

The growth in air travel reflects a good year for air traffic, the attractiveness of Finland as a destination and the increasing importance of Helsinki Airport as a hub between Europe and Asia.

“The excellent growth in traffic is in accordance with our expectations. Passenger numbers are now growing at the same rate at Helsinki and the main regional airports, such as Oulu, Turku, Kittilä and Vaasa,” said Helsinki Airport and Airline Sales & Accounts Executive Director Joni Sundelin.

The number of international transit passengers at Helsinki Airport has grown by 26.2 per cent. Most of the transit passengers come from Japan, China, Sweden, and Germany.

The growth in traffic at Helsinki Airport has continued to be stronger than at other Nordic air travel hubs.

At the rest of the airports under Finavia, the number of passengers grew by around 10.0 per cent. Three weeks of runway repairs caused only a temporary decrease at Tampere Airport. There has been an increase of 8.6 per cent in domestic passengers and 14.0 per cent in international passengers at the regional airports.

In the January-September period, 86 per cent of the passengers at Helsinki Airport travelled on international routes and 14 per cent on the domestic routes.