Helsinki Airport, which offers fast and smooth connections to Asia, is Northern Europe's leading transit airport. The aim of the development programme is to maintain Finland's good flight connections and to strengthen Helsinki Airport's strong competitive position.
It is predicted that the traffic between Asia and Europe will increase strongly in coming years. In the future, airports' competition for passengers will be increasingly fierce. Large-scale development projects are ongoing in numerous European airports.
Every third transit passenger chooses their connecting flight based on the transit airport
Smooth traffic flow, attractive services and short transfer times will become increasingly significant for airports. In order to keep up with the competition, the operations and services of Helsinki Airport must be developed and improved even further.
Read more how Helsinki Airport is developed.
Developing Helsinki Airport is a national investment
The Helsinki Airport development programme is significant for the development of Finland as a whole. It helps to maintain good flight connections for Finns to all destinations around the world, improves Finland’s competitiveness and offers work for thousands of people.
Internationally competitive airport is important for the well-being of Finland as a whole. Air traffic is major employer and significant tax payer in Finland. At the moment, Helsinki Airport employs either directly or indirectly approximately 20,000 people. During the construction phase its employment impact is 16,600 person-years.
Long-distance traffic brings passengers and tourists to Helsinki. This helps to increase demand for flight connections to Europe and within Finland as well. Helsinki Airport has been ranked as the best connected airport in Europe. Without the significant growth seen in traffic from Asia these past years, the number of destinations and frequency of departures would be significantly lower.
The development was made possible by the decision taken by the Finnish Government to provide Finavia with a capital injection of EUR 200 million. It has enabled Finavia to strengthen its solvency ratio and made it better placed to borrow money. Finavia must pay back the Government's investment using the income from the airport business.
Did you know?
- Air traffic provides employment to 100,000 people, either directly or indirectly, in Finland.
- Air traffic accounts for about 3.2 per cent of Finland's GDP.
- Direct and indirect taxes paid by aviation sector to the government amount to EUR 2.5 billion.
- The development programme will create 5,000 new permanent jobs in Helsinki Airport area.
The emphasis of the investments is on Helsinki Airport. However, also other airports in Finavia's airport Network will be developed. Renovation and maintenance work, such as paving of runways and terminal maintenance, will be performed at a number of airports.