COVER INTERVIEW: HELSINKI AIRPORT Welcome to the future of HEL
Ahead of revealing the results of a 13-lot commercial tender for Helsinki Airport, Joni Sundelin, Senior Vice President Finavia and Executive Director of Helsinki Airport and Katja Siberg, SVP, Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience shared the airport’s future commercial vision with Charlotte Turner.
Above: The new Aukio central plaza opened officially on 8 February.
L
ast year, Finavia registered a 7% increase in commercial revenue at Helsinki Airport (HEL), which
was a positive result according to Finavia Corp. Senior Vice President Joni Sundelin. “The year went as planned,” he
tells TRBusiness in a trade-exclusive interview. “We registered some 7% increase in commercial revenues for Helsinki Airport – these are Finavia’s revenues, then of course you have the operators in addition. But it was a positive year.” However, Sundelin is the first to
“If we are looking at transfer traffic, our Asia connections – of course the US is growing too – if you compare us with the other three main Nordic airports we have more routes than they have combined; to Asia, we have more
passengers than the three of them have together.”
Joni Sundelin, SVP Finavia & Executive Director at HEL 18 TRBUSINESS
admit that from a spend-per-head perspective, the result was flat. “Of course, because our traffic is growing so strongly, we reach a limit in our capacity when it comes to retail and F&B – especially with F&B. So to increase the spend per head, it is a bit of a challenge.” During peak hours, the airport struggles to serve and process the transactions of so many travellers. However, as has been well
reported, Finavia is more than addressing the capacity issue with its €1bn ($1.14bn) expansion project, which began in 2013. Helsinki Airport is undergoing the largest development programme in Finavia’s history, which should increase its capacity to 30m passengers per year by 2030.
Relocating retail With such a large project comes huge challenges in managing day-to- day operations, but interestingly the commercial revenues have not been badly impacted… thus far. “It’s actually not impacted retail and F&B too much,” says Sundelin.
“However, the T2 extension has
now started and the parking revenue will unfortunately be hit by the closure (in January) of 2,300 premium parking places. But aside from that we have been able to work around the construction effectively, by relocating the stores, for example.” Along with parking revenue,
Sundelin anticipates that this year will be more challenging though, as the development project really ramps up. For instance, by summer this year, HEL will complete not only an expansion of its border control, providing 2,400sq m of additional space, but will finish construction on the extension at the end of Terminal 1. This year will also result in the completion of the West Pier, together with its all-important wide- body aircraft gates. Finally, between 2020-2022, a
new entrance to HEL will open upon completion of the new expanded Terminal 2 (some of this space is currently being used for parking and public transport). Facilitating wide-body aircraft is essential if HEL is to successfully
FEBRUARY 2019
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