Passenger volumes at Finavia’s airports increased in January–September by 11.0%, or 1.9 million passengers, compared to the corresponding period last year. Comparable revenues increased in January–September by 10.4%, amounting to EUR 275.9 million due to good traffic development. Operating profit without extraordinary items increased by 5.9% to EUR 51.8 million.
“As predicted, Finavia has seen strong growth in 2018. As for the remainder of the year, the operating environment seems to remain stable and the passenger volumes of Finavia’s airports for the whole year are expected to increase. Our development projects both at Helsinki airport and the airport network proceeded as planned. At the same time, we have continued to focus particularly on upholding first-rate customer experience. The importance of customer experience is emphasised as traffic and passenger volumes increase and development projects change the airport environment of Helsinki airport,” says Kimmo Mäki, CEO of Finavia.
The strong global economic situation and trends continued to support growth
Passenger volume growth was also boosted by the increased capacity of airlines. The increase of the average plane size and new flight routes in Europe were positively reflected in the passenger flow. International traffic continued to increase faster at Helsinki Airport than at other main airports in the Nordic countries and at Heathrow and Amsterdam airports. The number of international passengers at Helsinki Airport during the review period increased by 11.6%. Correspondingly, for example Copenhagen reached a growth of 3.9% and Stockholm 2.4%. The number of transit passengers at Helsinki Airport increased by 23.9%.
The year 2018 has been about starting new development projects and commissioning of completed projects
At Helsinki Airport, the preparatory works for the expansion of the departure and arrival halls of Terminal 2 began in the third quarter. In other respects, the project planning for the expansion of Terminal 2 proceeded as expected. The new building is scheduled to be completed in 2022.
Investments in the rest of Finavia’s airport network also continued as planned. The first phase of the EUR 55 million investment programme concerning Lapland’s airports will be completed by Christmas this year, and the entire investment programme is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.
The largest development and renovation programme in the history of the Tampere-Pirkkala airport was completed in August. In the EUR 15 million project, infrastructure needed by air traffic was renovated and expanded.
