The low cost terminal at Tampere-Pirkkala Airport continues
to operate successfully. The cost-effective concept has
been well received and the intention is to expand this activity
at Tampere in future. Opened in April 2003, the low cost
terminal is the first of its kind in Finland.
Supplementing the CAA’s traditional types of terminal,
the cheaper fares embodied in the low cost concept are made
possible by pruning the usual services, with passengers
largely taking care of their own luggage, for example. Tampere-Pirkkala
was chosen for the low cost operation because a redundant
terminal became available which could be reconditioned and
put at the disposal of the airlines. The CAA subsidiary
Airpro Oy is responsible for running the terminal. The company
operates at ten airports in Finland, offering ground services
to airlines and passengers.
The main client of the Tampere-Pirkkala low cost terminal,
i.e. Terminal 2, is the Irish budget airline Ryanair, which
opened its Tampere–Frankfurt (Hahn) route in early
2004 and added daily flights to Riga in the autumn. Ryanair
also flies to London (Stansted) from Tampere.
The low-cost operations, which have increased profitability,
have also raised passenger volumes significantly at Tampere-Pirkkala.
More than 230,000 passengers made use of the low-cost terminal
in 2004, equal to almost half of all the passengers passing
through Tampere-Pirkkala. A full two thirds of international
passengers were low cost travellers. All told, Ryanair has
flown well over 300,000 passengers from Tampere during its
tenure there. On average, 20,000 passengers a month pass
through Terminal 2.
More
new passengers
“More than three quarters of low cost customers
are travelling in their free time, although the number
flying on business is also increasing slightly,”
said Kaj Lagerström, research chief at Airpro Oy,
who has made a study of passenger profiles. “About
30 per cent of passengers arriving at Tampere airport
come from (the surrounding province of) Pirkanmaa, while
22 per cent come from Uusimaa, many of them from as far
as Helsinki. Slightly more than half the customers are
Finns,” he adds.
Students make up a large proportion of customers, along
with the so-called backpackers. A particular favourite
of women is the London route, where many of the passengers
are also young, on average under 30.
“Our research shows that as many as a third of
passengers would not be travelling at all without the
opportunity provided by budget flights. So the low cost
operation by no means cuts into traditional air passenger
volumes, but brings in entirely new passengers instead,”
comments Airpro’s managing director, Jarkko Varjo.
“We aim to continue to develop traffic and operations
at the Tampere-Pirkkala low cost terminal in future. Sales
operations and cafe services have already been improved.
We also intend to market our services more widely to airlines
around the world.”
