Third terminal planned for Helsinki-Vantaa Airport
Growth in services to Asia bring massive investments
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The increase in traffic at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport has planners examining the possibilities of building new large terminal at the Airport, possibly in about ten years. Finavia, formerly the Civil Aviation Administration, is considering alternatives for the location of a new building.
"The number of passengers at the airport is growing by 20 per cent this year. Traffic to Asia and related feeder services to Europe will soon exhaust the capacity of the present international and domestic terminals. There will not be enough jet bridge space for the planes", notes Reijo Tasanen . Head of Finavia's airport operations.
If the new terminal is built between runways one and three, check-in for the flights would take place in the same terminals as now, and the passengers would be transported in a tunnel to the new terminal.
A more practical solution might be to build a point-to-point terminal at the western end of the airport. This allow for easier road access, as well as for more parking space for cars.
Flights linked with connecting services would remain at the old terminals, while point-to-point services, as well as holiday charter flights would focus on the new terminal.
"Helsinki-Vantaa is a big airport, considering Finland’s size. We have departures to about 60 destinations, which is more than from Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport, or from Oslo. During busy periods we can deal with as many as 80 take-offs and landings an hour", Tasanen says.
The present terminals can deal with about 15 million air passengers a year - about three million more than pass through the airport at present.
"A key factor in the growth has been Finnair’s successful Asia strategy, and the location of the airport, which has the shortest distance from Europe to the destinations of the Far East.
Finnair Marketing Director Paavo Virkkunen says that one of the advantages of Helsinki-Vantaa Airport is that changing planes is significantly faster and easeier there than at the large hubs of Central Europe.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 27.11.2006 - TODAY |
 Third terminal planned for Helsinki-Vantaa Airport
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