According to airport operator Finavia, this winter season will be record-breaking at Rovaniemi Airport in northern Finland, one of the country's most popular tourist destinations.
Twenty-three direct international routes will fly in and out of Rovaniemi this winter, 12 of them completely new connections. On Saturday, the airport celebrated the opening of the new routes by Finnair, Iberia, Austrian Airlines, and Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling.
On Saturday, Finnair launched a new route from Rovaniemi to Tromsø, Norway, while Iberia opened a connection to Madrid, Vueling to Barcelona and Austrian to Vienna.
Airlines currently offer approximately 1.6 million passenger seats to Finavia's five Lapland airports, which is approximately a 15 percent increase from last year. Nearly half of those are on flights to Rovaniemi, the region’s largest city, with the others going to Ivalo, Kemi-Tornio, Kittilä and Kuusamo, which is just over the border in Northern Ostrobothnia.
More than 20 scheduled flights left Rovaniemi on Saturday. In addition to the new routes, there were flights to Milan, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Liverpool and Manchester, among others.
Among those flying to Milan was Vivianna Rissanen, who lives in Oulu, some 200km to the south.
"This was easier than if I'd gone via Helsinki. Then I would have had to take the train, so this was a shorter trip. This was really handy," she told Yle.
"In Rovaniemi, the busiest travel days are in December, when many visitors from all over the world arrive. Weekends are generally popular travel times, especially Saturdays," said Petri Vuori, Finavia's SVP, Sales and Route Development.
"We call this our super winter. This will be a record winter in Rovaniemi. Compared to the previous year, the number of flights will increase by 20 percent," he told Yle.
More new routes to come
Between now and January, more new connections will open to Rovaniemi. EasyJet launches five new routes this month (Edinburgh, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Naples), while Dutch low-cost airline Transavia will start flights to and from Paris and Germany’s Eurowings will begin flying a Berlin route in January.
"The number of flights arriving at Rovaniemi, Kittilä, Kuusamo and Ivalo airports will vary between 50 and 130 flights during the busiest weeks," said Vuori.
According to Vuori, regular scheduled flights are important for the area's residents and companies.
"They also attract passengers from a wider area than the departure city thanks to connecting flights. It is important to us that international flight connections from various regions of Finland are as comprehensive as possible, and we hope that as many of the region's residents as possible will take advantage of the direct connections to Europe from their own home airports," he said.
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