Rovaniemi celebrates a record-breaking Lapland season with four new route openings

On Saturday, 2 December, Rovaniemi Airport celebrated its new route openings in a Christmas atmosphere. Finnair opened a route to Tromsø in Northern Norway, Austrian Airlines to Vienna, the capital of Austria, Vueling to Barcelona and Iberia to Madrid.

Photo: Santa Claus and elves brought a festive atmosphere to the airport.

“The new route openings are proof of the attractiveness of Lapland and the work we are doing with our partners to make Finland more accessible. This winter, Rovaniemi Airport will open 13 completely new routes to destinations around Europe. There will be as many as 24 direct international routes and, according to current information, airlines will offer more than 700,000 round-trip seats for Rovaniemi flights,” says Petri Vuori, Finavia’s Senior Vice President responsible for route development.

Photo: the crew of Vueling's inaugural flight after the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Photo: the crew of Austrian's inaugural flight and Visit Rovaniemi CEO Sanna Kärkkäinen (second from left).

Routes opened on Saturday, 2 December:

“Rovaniemi is preparing for the biggest winter tourism season in its history, predicting an increase of more than 10% in accommodation days compared to the previous year. This growth is the result of extensive route development work, for which the region’s attractive and high-quality tourism offer provides an excellent foundation. The record-breaking route coverage makes it possible to add nearly 75,000 tourists to the Rovaniemi winter. A third of the new routes were opened on Saturday 2 December, the super day of Rovaniemi route openings, and that now moves us to the busiest season, with several dozen flights arriving daily,” says Sanna Kärkkäinen, the Managing Director of Visit Rovaniemi.

Photo: Visit Rovaniemi's Sanna Kärkkäinen (left), Iberia's Antonio Linares, Finavia's Johan Juujärvi and Petri Vuori.

Photo: Finnair's first flight from Tromsø arrives in Rovaniemi.

Lapland is now more accessible than ever

All Finavia Lapland airports, which include Rovaniemi as well as Kittilä, Ivalo and Kuusamo, will open 20 new routes from Europe this winter. There will be a total of 37 direct international routes.

“This winter, our airports will make Lapland more accessible than ever. According to current information, airlines will offer approximately 1.6 million passenger seats to Lapland, which is an increase of about 15% compared to the previous winter,” says Jonna Pietilä , Finavia’s Vice President, Lapland airports.

Photo: Santa Claus delighted both passengers and flight crew.

Photo: Visit Rovaniemi's Sanna Kärkkäinen (left), Lufthansa Group's Patrick Borg Hedley and Finavia's Petri Vuori.

Photos: Jaakko Posti ja Simo Vilhunen.

Learn more:

Flight list: These destinations will be served by direct scheduled flights from Finavia airports during the 2023–2024 winter season

A lot of new routes to open at Finavia airports for the winter season