Parachutists challenge Finavia restrictions at Pori Airport

The Finnish Aeronautical Association has taken a dispute over parachuting at Pori Airport to Finavia’s senior management, Yle reported. The association says Finavia has not provided sufficient grounds for restrictions it has imposed on the activity.

Finavia has cited safety and access control. The association fears the restrictions could eventually threaten parachuting across Finland.

Satakunnan Laskuvarjourheilijat, a parachuting club, has operated at Pori Airport since the late 1960s. This year, the club’s activities have been disrupted by restrictions imposed from outside.

Club chairman Veikko Skurnik said discussions about tightening access control began in late winter. In April, Finavia announced that the club’s premises would be closed three weeks later and that parachutists would no longer be allowed to land in the area.

After an extension was negotiated, the club moved its operations to Piikajärvi airfield in Kokemäki in July while maintenance work was carried out at Pori Airport. The return to Pori was delayed by discussions over whether jumping would be permitted on weekday evenings.

“We would have returned in August, but we were negotiating with Finavia over whether we could jump on weekday evenings. The delay meant that we did not move back until September,” Skurnik said.

The club was eventually permitted to conduct jumps on Thursday evenings. Finavia briefly cited safety as the reason.

Skurnik said he did not understand how jumping could be safer on Thursdays than on other weekday evenings. He also questioned Finavia’s reference to a commercial agreement with the Aviation Academy, under which the club must not interfere with the academy’s flights.

According to Skurnik, the academy’s managing director told the club that the issue was one of coordination and that other traffic would also benefit its student pilots.

Finavia emphasises safety

Finavia told Yle that it could not discuss in detail the negotiations held with customers and stakeholders. It said, however, that the supervisory authority had raised the need this year to strengthen access control for people moving around the airport.

“We confirm that changes to access control have therefore been made at the airport during the autumn, and these changes also include some additional requirements for general aviation users,” Finavia communications manager Elina Suominen said by email.

Suominen said several operators typically work in an airport area, making it important to coordinate all activities carefully and safely. This can sometimes require changes to the use of different areas and to schedules, she said.

Skurnik said he understood that the club’s activities had to be safe. The club has proposed to Finavia how access-control concerns could be resolved.

“Our activities are already highly controlled, and we know very well who moves around the airport area. We do not operate there randomly. We can develop our procedures, but we have not received a response to our proposals,” he said.

Association demands explanations

The Finnish Aeronautical Association says Finavia’s justifications have changed repeatedly during the year and that no concrete basis has been provided for them. It has requested explanations for the restrictions both orally and in writing.

Petri Kantola, the association’s head of advocacy, said that if Finavia does not respond to its latest request, the association will ask the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency to investigate Finavia’s actions.

“When they invoke safety but refuse to explain the concrete reasons, they will ultimately have to justify them to the authorities. Our understanding is that such reasons do not actually exist,” Kantola said.

Kantola said the association would pursue the matter on behalf of the small local club.

“The association has been placed in an extremely difficult position, and it feels as if someone has deliberately tried to pull the rug out from under its activities. I suspect that Finavia’s commercial interests are behind this,” he said.

Kantola fears that the situation in Pori could be the beginning of a wider reduction of parachuting activities in Finland.