Scandinavian airports

[pee]

Instead of starting the next thread concerning just another European airport, in this new thread I'd like to discuss the issues of different Scandinavian airports "all-in-one".

Right now, we have fresh news from Finland.

The Finnish government wants to inject 200 million euros of new capital to develop key airport infrastructure of the country, starting next year. Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen said on Thursday that Finavia (airport service company) could receive some 200 million euros to kick-start the expansion plans at Helsinki Airport. Finavia's CEO, Kari Savolainen, says that this investment will have a big effect on employment figures and that the state’s investment will be repaid.

The entire investment will amount to appr. one billion euros, as the money will come not only from the taxpayers money, but also as a loan of further 800.000 EUR - the investment should pay back. The passenger numbers will grow to 20 million a year and some 5 thousand new jobs will be created.

[davidjohnson6]

pee - interesting. What is the business case for the investment ? Are Helsinki and other airports straining to meet demand, is there end-of-life infrastructure or does the Govt want to turn Helsinki into more of an intercontinental hub ?

[pee]

HEL is not straining to meet the demand, but the government is planning to make use of Finland's geographical location and promote Vantaa as the intercontinental hub, Asia as the target. Finland has reasons to fear that the economical recession is not over here. Having no cheap labour the country has difficulties selling its goods, why not try to sell more services? The bigger hub would provide more jobs.