CPH: Copenhagen Airport grew passenger traffic by one millions in 2015
More than 26.6 million passengers travelled through Copenhagen Airport in 2015, which was one million or 3.8% more than in 2014. Increasing passenger numbers on long-haul routes contributed significantly to the increase. Also, more passengers travelled to Denmark – both from Europe and the rest of the world.
Almost 2 million travellers in December was a new high, up 12.5% year-on-year. This completed a year of record passenger numbers for Copenhagen Airport: In all, 26,610,332 people travelled to and from Copenhagen Airport in 2015, a growth rate of 3.8%.
According to CEO Thomas Woldbye, one explanation for the strong growth is an increase in passenger numbers on long-haul routes:
“The number of long-haul routes into and out of Copenhagen has doubled in the past decade, and last year alone we added five new intercontinental destinations to our route map. More routes also mean more passengers, and in December alone, we had 15.2% more passengers on long-haul routes – significantly above the average growth rate. During the year, we expanded Pier C to accommodate the large increase in passengers. We also expanded the runway so that we are now able to handle the largest aircraft like the Airbus A380, which has been operating on daily services to Copenhagen since December,” explained Thomas Woldbye.
In 2015, Norwegian launched non-stop routes to destinations including Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Additional intercontinental routes to Miami, Boston and other destinations will follow in 2016.
For a number of years, Copenhagen Airport has been working to increase the number of passengers travelling to Denmark and, indeed, seven in ten of the new passengers in 2015 were tourists and business travellers visiting Denmark.
“More routes mean better global market coverage. An important source of our growth is an increase in incoming passengers, which has been a strategic goal for us, as it signifies real market expansion and contributes directly to the region’s economy. The fact that two-thirds of the growth is from this source is therefore very gratifying to us. In the coming years, we will expand the airport to accommodate 40 million travellers per year, and this will help secure growth and new jobs for all of Denmark,” said Thomas Woldbye.
26,610,332 passengers in total travelled through the airport in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 3.8%. European traffic grew 4.4%, while domestic traffic fell 2.9%, mainly as a result of a decline in the spring. In December, domestic traffic rose 10.2% compared with the year-earlier period.
