The overwhelming majority of Christmas-season flights to Lapland originate from the UK. The Civil Aviation Administration needs to hire a large number of extra staffers to help out at the Lapland airports, as British tourists create more work than the citizens of other EU nations.
Great Britain has not signed the Schengen agreement, which means that the British require passport control. This adds to the workload of the Lapland Frontier Guard as well.
In Kittilä, the airport staff, authorities, and safari operators have held meetings to find ways to cope more flexibly with the Christmas congestion at the airport.
On the busiest day, eighteen charter flights will land in Kittilä. Fourteen of them will be full of day-trippers.
On such a mini-holiday, British tourists have time to spend only seven hours in Kittilä. They do not want to waste any precious minutes standing in line for passport formalities.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 24.10.2004
