From January 1st 2007 the governmental passenger tax will be abolished altogether making it even more cost effective to operate from Copenhagen Airport. The tax was halved January 1st 2006 and the result has been obvious during 2006. CPH has experienced passenger and market growth along with enhanced business cases.
Key events of 2006
Lower cost: 2006 was the year CPH was elected ninth on the list of European airports with the lowest charges by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) hence, the charges at CPH are lower than the competitors’ such as London – Heathrow, Frankfurt and Stockholm.
CPH moved from being number twelve to ninth as result of reducing charges by 3% at the turn of the year. And during the same year CPH was first elected “The Best European Airport” and shortly after Copenhagen was elected “Europe’s most efficient airport”.
Growth was in absolute focus this year. Thus CPH could welcome six new European routes, three intercontinental routes, three new LCC routes and not less than five new carries. The construction of a new central security checkpoint was started in the fall of 2006 to accommodate the passenger growth of 2006 and the expected growth from years to come. The checkpoint will cost 200 million DKK and will be finished for the busy summer traffic of 2007.
Booming traffic: The transatlantic traffic is one of the thriving markets for CPH. 79,000 passengers travelled between CPH and the US in June 2006 alone and hence, setting a new passenger record. This was 32% more passengers than June 2005.
The reason for this striking passenger growth was the entering of Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines to Atlanta and New York respectively. Many passengers who used to travel to the US via other major European airports now choose to fly directly from CPH. Thus Copenhagen’s position as a European air traffic hub is strengthened. The same market expansion was experienced on both the German and the Dutch markets.
Marketing Support: 1.5 million DKK was spent on a marketing campaign in Southern Sweden. The campaign marketed the cheap airfares site http://www.kastrup.nu/ and the purpose is to encourage even more Southern Swedes choose Copenhagen Airport as their point of departure hence, creating more traffic for our airline customers. During the first two weeks alone we experienced 13,175 unique viewers and a third of these clicked on to one of the airlines websites.
Since Southern Sweden is accessible from CPH in 20 min by train and 15 min by car via the Oresund Bridge, we expect to continue to market our airline customer’s products in this increasingly important part of our catchment area.
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Events to come
The Interline Workshop at CPH was a great success when it was held for the first time in 2006. The success will be repeated in the beginning of 2007 and we are, of course, looking forward to welcoming many airline representatives. In 2006 we welcomed 15 different airlines to 45 planned meeting on a day dedicated to airlines only.
The Interline Workshop is an opportunity for the airlines to negotiate and to create new relations. Although the airlines do have other opportunities to meet, the unique aspect of the Interline Workshop is that all day is dedicated to creating new relations to other airlines.
Conferences: Aside from the Interline Workshop you will have the possibility of meeting the route development team from Copenhagen Airport at the following conferences in 2007:
- Routes in Stockholm - September
- Routes: Regional Asia in Hainan - April
- Regional Routes Europe in Sofia - May
- IATA Schedules Conference in Dresden and in Toronto ________________________________________
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all
Finally, everybody from Airline Relations wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to continue our co-operation in the years to come.
If you have any questions or comments to this newsletter please contact marketing coordinator Tina Bendix on tina.bendix@cph.dk or +45 3231 2018 or please visit http://www.scandinaviashub.com/
