CPH: Record for October at Copenhagen Airport
A surge in passenger numbers moved the growth rate to 6.2%, making this the busiest October ever at Copenhagen Airport. The growth was driven not least by long-haul intercontinental routes. CPH recently completed an expansion of Pier C to accommodate the growth.
A total of 2,476,553 passengers travelled through Copenhagen Airport in October, making it the busiest October in the airport’s 90-year history.
One of the places this was felt was in Pier C, which is used for long-haul intercontinental routes. Intercontinental traffic grew by 7.1%, and so did European traffic.
“The strong 7.1% growth in international traffic underlines the importance of our plan to expand the airport and grow from 25 to 40 million passengers annually over the next couple of decades. Most recently, we expanded one of our main runways and the pier used for intercontinental traffic, Pier C, adding an additional 6,300 square metres of space to accommodate the growth and the biggest passenger airliners,” said Copenhagen Airports’ CEO Thomas Woldbye.
Most recently, SAS added an additional two weekly frequencies to its Shanghai service, one to San Francisco and six to New York. Air Canada has also added an additional weekly frequency to Toronto.
Norwegian just launched new routes to Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. On 1 December, Emirates will begin using the A380, the world’s biggest passenger airliner, on its service to Dubai. Next year, SAS will launch new routes to Miami and Boston, and Norwegian will begin serving Boston.
“The number of long-haul routes out of Copenhagen has doubled in the past decade and will reach 34 routes next year. More routes and more frequencies is good news for Denmark. It means that we can attract more tourists and business travellers to our country; companies all over Denmark will be better able to do business globally, and Danish leisure travellers will have even more destinations to choose from,” said Woldbye.
Year to date, 22,607,558 million passengers have travelled through Copenhagen Airport, representing a 2.5% increase over last year.
European traffic also grew; the growth rate being 7.1%. Domestic traffic was down by 5% due to lower capacity. Transfer traffic fell by 3.7%.