Aarhus Airport in Denmark has attributed a strong growth in passenger volume in April to an expansion by SAS (Scandinavian Airlines).
In spring the airport opened new routes to Munich, Stockholm Arlanda, Oslo, Nice and Mallorca, part of the SAS expansion which Aarhus Airport expects will increase traffic by 50%.
The airport said evidence of this expected boost can already be seen in the passenger figures for April, where footfall has risen by 39.6% compared with April last year, while international passenger volume saw a growth of 77.4%.
“The extraordinarily large jump in international traffic is largely due to all the new SAS routes, several of which have only been open for a couple of weeks, giving a taste of future potential,” said Peter Høgsberg, director of Aarhus Airport. “In addition, the development is helped by Czech Airlines’ route to Prague and Ryanair’s new route to Gdansk. It is clear that the many new route openings make a significant difference to the total traffic of the airport and paint a picture of a growth that we will see much more of in 2018.”
Høgsberg also pointed out that the new routes increase accessibility to destinations the airport does not have direct flights to. One popular route is to Oslo, where an increasing number of East Jutland business travellers are using the opportunity to fly on to Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim and Tromsø.
In April domestic traffic in the airport rose by 17.8%, however there was a reduction in charter traffic due to Easter falling in March this year, when it fell in April in 2017. In total, Aarhus Airport’s passenger numbers for April show an increase of 39.6% compared to April last year.
Based on the new passenger numbers, the largest route in Aarhus Airport continues to be SAS’ domestic route between Aarhus and Copenhagen, followed by Ryanair’s route to London, while Oslo makes third largest.
The expansion by SAS has seen new routes, the existing summer route to Malaga increased to an all-year route, and SAS has increased flights between Aarhus and Copenhagen by up to 20%. Recently, Aarhus Airport also announced a new route to Berlin with easyJet from September. The first time the low-fare airline has opened service in mainland Denmark.
