Traficom sets five criteria for Finland’s key airports

Finland’s transport and communications agency Traficom has set out five criteria for assessing the national importance of airports, Yle reports. The review offers information for decisions on which airports are nationally important, but ranks neither the airports nor the criteria.

Politicians are due to decide next year how much weight to give each measure, including how security of supply should be balanced against economic considerations, said Emil Asp, a director general at Traficom.

The criteria are passenger numbers, financial performance, socioeconomic efficiency, regional impacts, and importance to security of supply and the Finnish Defence Forces. Socioeconomic efficiency weighs benefits against costs, including accessibility, state subsidies, tax revenue and emissions. It also considers how much passengers and regions would be affected if an airport were unavailable.

Regional economic impacts are assessed by comparing tourism revenue. Traficom said wider economic effects can be difficult to measure, and the Ministry of Transport and Communications is conducting a more detailed analysis. Security and defence considerations include whether an airport serves as a base or training location, supports patient and blood-product transport, or is close to a central or university hospital.

Passenger trends diverge north and south

Passenger numbers are rising at airports in Lapland, driven by tourism, while they are generally falling south of Oulu. Traficom describes the changes as structural rather than temporary. Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was excluded from the review.

Rovaniemi and Oulu were the only airports with more than 500,000 passengers last year. Rovaniemi is the centre of tourism in Lapland, the largest airport in the national airport network and the only one in that network to be commercially profitable. Its tourism revenue is estimated to exceed that of all the other network airports combined. Oulu had the second-highest passenger total, but numbers are falling sharply and tourism revenue is low relative to the airport’s size. Its socioeconomic impact is nevertheless strongly positive.

Seven medium-sized airports had between 100,000 and 400,000 passengers. Kittilä had the second-highest tourism revenue among network airports, with passenger numbers growing strongly. Ivalo had the third-highest tourism revenue, and its passenger numbers have risen considerably since the 2000s.

Passenger numbers are falling in Turku, Vaasa, Kuopio and Tampere. Turku’s international traffic gives it a positive socioeconomic net result; the airport is also an important alternate airport for security of supply and handles many patient transports. Vaasa has the highest tourism revenue among airports outside Lapland, while international traffic adds to its broader economic importance. Kuopio and Tampere are also seeing declining passenger numbers.