This is good news forCopenhagen airportthe company SAS Scandinavian Airlinesbut also for Air France-KLM and the alliance Skyteam. Scandinavia's leading international hub is regaining momentum. Over the first 7 months of 2024, it recorded growth in passenger traffic of 12% compared with 2023. Its traffic levels are now flirting with those of 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic.
From January to September 2024, Copenhagen welcomed 22.77 million passengers.. This has forced the airport authorities to revise their forecasts upwards. They expect traffic now estimated at 29.8 million passengers for the year as a whole. This is just 1.5 points below the 2019 traffic level (30.25 million passengers).
Traffic on both European and intercontinental routes is up sharply on 2023. European passenger numbers up 12%reaching exactly its 2019 level. To the intercontinental, the increase was even more spectacular, reaching 22% compared with 2023. Nevertheless, passenger traffic remains 11% below its 2019 level.
The only downside is that domestic traffic continues to decline. It is 25% below 2019 and 7% below 2023 for the first nine months.
Over the first nine months, the busiest routes were those to London, Oslo and Stockholm, handling between 950,000 and 1.4 million passengers. Copenhagen-Amsterdam and Copenhagen-Paris ranked 4th and 5th respectively. Amsterdam saw an increase of 5% compared with 2019, and Paris 9%.
The new ambitions of the Skyteam hub
It is likely that the figures for 2025 will be well above the 2019 reference year, in particular with the ambitious SAS and Skyteam expansion programme in Copenhagen next year.
In mid-September, SAS has presented its 2025 summer programmewhich will see its first network expansion phase as part of the Skyteam alliance. SAS plans to the opening of 15 new routes. In Europe, the carrier will be inaugurating flights to Billund, Bodø, Bucharest, Budapest, Krakow, Harstad/Narvik and Kristiansand, LyonMadrid, Malta, Milan-Linate, Seville, Turku and Valencia.
SAS will be increasing its frequencies to Berlin, Helsinki, Oslo, Prague and Stockholm. The airline also confirms services to Atlanta, Seattle and Toronto during the summer..
The airport continues to invest in its expansion, particularly with the prospect of the Skyteam global hub. Lhe Danish hub has launched work to expand Terminal 3, which will be completed in 2028. The transit hall will gain 13,000 m2, including new shops and an indoor garden that will run the length of the new infrastructure. Passport control will be modernised and expanded, as will baggage delivery facilities. Finally, more aircraft will be parked directly in the terminal.
