DENMARK. Copenhagen Airport handled +10.8% more passengers in May, with the year-on-year growth driven by a marked increase in the number of tourists visiting Denmark.
In the first quarter of 2016, +27.2% more tourists travelled to Denmark via Copenhagen Airport compared with the same period last year.
More than 2.5 million people passed through the airport in May.
“When more tourists visit Denmark, it helps generate growth and create jobs in tourism throughout the country,” noted Copenhagen Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye.
“An important explanation of the high growth is accessibility. Denmark is very well connected to Europe and the rest of the world. In the past year, accessibility has increased substantially, especially because new routes have been opened to Copenhagen Airport and, not least, due to the many more flights out of Copenhagen.
“More flights out of Copenhagen and several airlines operating on the same route make it easier for tourists to find a flight that fits their plans.”
The airport said the majority of tourists were coming from other European countries. European traffic grew by 207,052 passengers compared with the same month in 2015. Intercontinental traffic is also growing rapidly, with a +12.2% year-on-year increase in May.
“Danes like to travel long distances for their holidays, and the more than 30 non-stop intercontinental routes out of Copenhagen provide a good starting point for accommodating them. But it also means that more tourists and business travellers from far away have easy access to Denmark,” explained Woldbye.
He noted the example of both Norwegian and SAS starting non-stop services to Boston in the US during the spring, opening up a new market and “giving even more Americans better possibilities of travelling to Denmark”.
Year-to-date traffic growth at Copenhagen Airport now stands at +11.5%. A total of 10,947,321 passengers travelled through the airport in the first five months of 2016.
