25% increase in long haul at CPH within three months – are you getting your share of the booming market at Scandinavia’s Hub?

By summer 2010 high profile long haul routes to Toronto (Air Canada), New York JFK (Delta AirLines) and Doha (Qatar Airways) will open, leaving CPH with no less than 15 intercontinental destinations served year round – the highest number of any Scandinavian airport and a record for CPH.

Additionally Egyptair has just announced that they will open Copenhagen – Cairo again starting October 2010, after the route has been unserved for four years. With this new route Egyptair will be the only African carrier to serve CPH non-stop hence, closing an important hole in the airport’s route network. The significance to this new route is that Egyptair will be the only legacy carrier operating scheduled services from Africa to Scandinavia.

The African continent is a strong market for CPH due to the growth economies there, as well as a long-term absence of direct routes between Scandinavia’s Hub and Africa. Egyptair will commence the route with a 737-800 which is very much suited for the business demand and CPH sees great potential for this route. The strongest traffic flows to Africa go to Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Morocco. Consequently a direct route to Cairo will not only boost the CPH-Cairo  market but also the African-bound traffic due to Cairo’s connectivity to the African continent as well as a very well developed route network to the Middle East.

The only Scandinavian airport with a two digit growth rate

With these new carriers entering CPH no less than 12 long haul airlines will be serving the airport. A total of 21 new routes will open during the first half of 2010 by new and existing airline customers. What’s more, CPH saw an increase of no less than 34% in domestic traffic in March 2010 alone, mainly caused by increased competition. In fact, CPH is the only Scandinavian airport with a two digit growth rate for the first quarter of 2010.