The spring is upon us and this will clearly be a busy time for Airline Relations. During the next couple of months we have the pleasure of welcoming a number of new route destinations and not least, several new airlines to Copenhagen Airport. Hence, we are delighted with the opportunity of welcoming even more passengers in the spring of 2006.

We will start the inaugurations of this spring at May 2nd where we will welcome two new airlines and three new destinations to Copenhagen Airport. Delta Air Lines, who will start an intercontinental route to Atlanta, USA and Air Berlin, who will start flying to Berlin and Düsseldorf. Furthermore Air Berlin will start flying to Hamburg on May 5th.

We also have the pleasure of welcoming two further airlines during May 2006. May 13th Air One who will start flying Copenhagen-Rome and May 24th the American airline Continental will start flying to New York.

Furthermore, we can feature additional new route destinations during this spring. Hungarian Málev will start flying to Balaton May 20th, and Middle East Airlines - MEA - will start up their summer program to Beirut again from May 31st. Also the low cost carrier Smart Wings will start flying to Prague at June 5th.  

One of the main reasons for this growth is that the Danish government has chosen to cut the passenger tax in half in 2006 and totally abolish it in 2007. At the same time it is thought that Sweden will introduce a new passenger charge and that the same is expected to happen in Norway. This means that aside from having the largest catchment area in Scandinavia, consisting of both Denmark and Southern Sweden, the prices at CPH have become much more favourable for the airlines and by 2007 the price differential will be even more significant.

CPH also has very cost-competitive prices within the Cargo area resulting from the take-off charges being cut by 3% from January 1st 2006. Concurrently CPH introduced a cap on the take-off charges on all-cargo flights exceeding 200 tonnes. Consequently all-cargo flights do not pay any take-off charge for the part of the take-off weight exceeding 200 tonnes. "Copenhagen Airport is making great progress as a cargo hub these years in terms of increased volumes of cargo, more departures and a number of new destinations. This trend will be strengthened even further with the lower charges for all-cargo flights," commented Lars Korup, Cargo Manager. 

At Airline Relations we are looking forward to welcoming even more airlines and new destinations to Copenhagen Airport. If you want to know more about the opportunities for your airline at CPH or if you have any questions or comments to this newsletter please write to tina.bendix@cph.dk.