Finland's air travel sector has seen some improvement since the Covid crisis caused turbulence within the industry.
However, there remains a considerable distance to go before the aviation business returns to pre-pandemic levels, according to passenger data.
Earlier this week the country's airport operator Finavia reported that 15.5 million passengers used Finnish airports last year, but in 2019, the year before Covid, the figures reached nearly 26.3 million passengers.
However, there were some positive developments in terms of passenger volumes last year. For example, passenger levels at Oulu airport more than doubled to 640,000 passengers in 2022, compared to just over 300,000 the previous year, according to Statistics Finland figures.
The manager of Oulu Airport, Liisa Sallinen, acknowledged that business was still far from pre-pandemic levels, noting that the airport served more than one million passengers.
"The number of business travellers has not decreased as much as was perhaps feared. Air travel is increasing, but there's still a long way to go before the peak years of a million," she said.
Pent-up demand
Another reason for the decline was a decision by budget airline Norwegian this winter to suspend its Helsinki-Oulu route until further notice, due to lack of customer demand.
Sallinen said that workers at the airport have noticed a pent-up demand among people to travel, but she refused to speculate when business would return to pre-Covid heights.
The only airport in Finland to exceed its previous record passenger numbers was in Kuusamo, a popular tourist destination in Northern Ostrobothnia.
Last year just over 117,000 passengers passed through Kuusamo Airport, breaking 2019's all-time record of 114,003 passengers. Most of the growth was due to international travellers.
Meanwhile, Finland's busiest hub, Helsinki Airport, saw nearly 13 million passengers last year, while nearly 22 million passengers travelled through the airport in 2019.
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