Slight Growth in Air Traffic

Air traffic development in 2003 was characterised by a severe divergence between the subdued and declining picture at the beginning of the year and the relatively powerful upturn in traffic at the end of the year.

The downturn in traffic had already begun by the end of 2002 when the international situation worsened and the first news of the SARS epidemic became known. Monthly passenger numbers declined right up until July, and it was not until August that the monthly volumes began to show as a positive trend. Yet despite the relatively good monthly growth at the end of the year, the number of journeys by the end of the year was only 2 % up in 2003. In fact the trend in domestic air traffic for the whole year was 2.4 % down as a result of an extremely bad period from the early spring until the summer. International air traffic rose by 3.7 % during the year. Worthy of note is the exceptionally powerful growth in charter traffic, of 11.4 %, resulting from extra travel capacity and a growth in charter flights to Lapland.

Another special feature of 2003 was the entry of a number of new airlines into the market. During the year, four new airlines for scheduled traffic were founded in Finland, while three new foreign airlines began running flights to Finland. Following the general European trend, the so called low-cost airlines also found their way to the Finnish market, which was manifested in new destinations and considerably reduced air fares during the year. Competition also appeared in domestic air traffic, and the competition over ticket prices also affected other forms of transport. It is now clear that vicious price warfare is not healthy in all respects.

Overall, air transport capacity, the number of landings, rose by 1.1 % in 2003. Growth resulted from an increase in international capacity of 3.7 %. Domestic landings declined by 1.1 % from 2002.

The number of overflights of Finnish airspace rose by 4.0 %, but in terms of kilometres, overflight traffic increased by only 0.8 %.