Finnish airports see higher passengers in Jan but lower than 2019

A total of 1.5 million passengers flew through Finnish airports in January 2023, which was 78 per cent more than one year ago, but still a quarter lower than pre-pandemic level in January 2019, according to Statistics Finland.

The number of passengers on domestic flights increased by 57 per cent and on international flights by 86 per cent compared to January 2022.

In January 2023, a total of 1.1 million passengers flew through Helsinki Airport and altogether 0,3 million passengers flew through other domestic airports. Helsinki Airport accounted for 77 per cent of all passengers at domestic airports.

The number of passengers at Helsinki Airport was 29 per cent lower and the combined number of passengers at other domestic airports 14 per cent lower than in January 2019.

Enontekiö, Kittilä, Kuusamo and Rovaniemi airports are exceptions to this, as the number of passengers there exceeded the level of 2019 in January.

Compared to January 2022, the number of passengers at both Helsinki Airport and other domestic airports combined was 80 per cent higher.

The exceptionally high relative growth in the number of passengers compared to last year is caused by the collapse of air traffic due to the COVID-19 pandemic starting from spring 2020.

The year 2019 is used in the statistics as the comparison year to describe the number of air passengers before the pandemic.

Seventy-three per cent of the air passengers travelled on international flights and 27 per cent on domestic flights.

The share of passengers on international flights was 83 per cent at Helsinki Airport and 42 per cent in total at other domestic airports.

Air freight and mail transport totalled 12,890 tonnes in January 2023. In all, 100 per cent of the tonnes were transported through Helsinki Airport and 99 per cent in traffic between Finland and foreign countries.

Altogether 7,324 tonnes (57%) of the transported volume of goods were outgoing and 5,566 tonnes (43%) were incoming.