Majority of passengers at Tampere-Pirkkala Airport pass through dilapidated former cargo terminal

Fears over unwelcoming image for discount airline passengers

print this

The popularity of the budget airline Ryanair has created an interesting situation at Tampere-Pirkkala Airport.
      There is now cause for worry with regard to the first impression of Finland given to foreign travellers.
     
Though there would be a genuine, modern, light and spacious departures and arrivals terminal with all services imaginable right next door, the Ryanair passengers - in other words the greater part of the travellers passing through the airport - use the so-called No.2 Terminal solely occupied by the cut-price carrier.
      And that particular terminal is a far, far cry from anything glamorous that once might have been associated with air travel.
     
The stripped-down services and cheap flights offered by Ryanair have been popular enough among the Finns for the company’s passenger volumes to exceed those of all the other airlines using the Tampere-Pirkkala Airport.
      This has led to a situation in which Pirkkala’s Terminal Two - the former air cargo terminal - has become the airport’s de facto “No.1 international terminal” when measured in passenger volumes.
     
The number two terminal can only be described as modest. There are worn-out seats for a dozen passengers. The 10 square-metre space reserved for those coming to pick up passengers can hardly be called an “arrivals hall”.
      “The whole thing is a bit of a chipboard hovel”, admits airport director Pertti Skogberg.
      “One cannot expect five-star service for one-star price.”
      The number of annual passengers travelling through Terminal Two is over 400,000, and this is likely to increase in the coming years.
     
Once the former cargo terminal gets revamped, possibly in about two years’ time, it will offer Ryanair a chance to increase its number of European destinations from Finland from the present six cities.
      At present, the terminal can only cope with one planeful of passengers at a time.
      The more expensive number one terminal a couple of hundred metres away is of no interest to Ryanair.
      Terminal Two is cheaper, plain and simple.
      Hence the first impression of Finland to thousands of foreign tourists will be formed by the tacky chipboard partitions of the cramped old cargo terminal.
     
At the Pirkkala airport, more so than anywhere else in Finland, one can observe the two-class system of today’s air travel business.
      The backpacking youth are stuffed into Terminal Two, while the business travellers with their suits and briefcases enjoy the comfort and wide open spaces of Terminal One.
      The renovation of Terminal Two is currently being held up by a complaint made to the EU Commission, according to which Ryanair would receive unjustified support from the Finnish government to refit the building.
     
Tampere-Pirkkala is Finland's third-busiest airport after Helsinki-Vantaa International and Oulu.
      Last year a total of just under 700,000 passengers passed through the airport, which is Finland's No.2 in terms of international traffic. Oulu by contrast has a good deal more on the domestic side.
      There are 139 scheduled flights through Tampere-Pirkkala each week. Finnair associate Finncomm flies shuttles to and from Helsinki, Blue1 flies to Stockholm, SAS to Copenhagen, and Wingo to Turku and Oulu.
     
The real heavy user, however, in terms of destinations and passenger throughput, is Ryanair, flying from here to Riga, London Stansted, Dublin, Frankfurt, Bremen, and Milan.
      What the Milanese fashionista-on-a-budget thinks of the terminal is anyone's guess.
      But as Pertti Skogberg points out: "While some passengers on cut-price aitlines have started to demand better conditions, they have tended to forget that they have only paid a couple of tens of euros for their ticket."


Links:
  Ryanair
  Finavia: Tampere-Pirkkala Airport

Helsingin Sanomat