Aarhus growth pace gains even higher altitude

In H1 2018 first half international passenger numbers at Aarhus Airport climbed steeply at +62% versus 2017 and total customer numbers including domestic expanded by +23% during the period compared to the previous year.  However, the addition of new sunshine capacity as well as newly accrued customers on both domestic flights and also low cost international services - pushing load factors even higher - contributed to a July increase of +80.7% international passengers and +43.3% total customers versus the same month in 2017.  The six monthly growth rate thus climbed +7% to a trend of +69% year on year for international and +5% to a trend of +28% for total passengers.

Aarhus Airport’s business development spokesman, David Surley – Head of Airline Relations, pointed out “an across the board development of new direct flights is yielding such good dividend; not only to destinations such as Munich and Arlanda introduced by SAS earlier in the year, but also a sharp rise in leisure customers to new sunshine destinations like Split in Croatia and Nice in France, plus a marked increase on low-cost airline traffic such as from Gdansk in Poland and a very strong rise in domestic passenger numbers.  The combined effect producing a wonderfully healthy outlook at this time”.   

In all, 7 new services have taken flight with SAS since March and in September the Airport will open its 9th new route of the last 12 months, as easyJet commences operations for the first time in mainland Denmark, linking Aarhus with it’s expanding Berlin Tegel hub.  “We really look forward to bringing easyJet to town”, said Surley, “this is a fabulous brand with all the customer appeal credentials that Danish customers here will enjoy and we also expect to see great outcomes for inbound tourism from Germany, as this has been a very high growth market for some time.”  

Airport passenger growth is not the only expansion being experienced in Denmark’s second city.  Hot on the heels of its year as European Capital of Culture in 2017, the city is currently playing host to the 2018 World Sailing Championships and Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifiers while also enjoying a record breaking Scandinavia-wide heatwave.  Aarhus recently opened the world’s largest salt-water lido on Aarhus downtown waterfront and this year hosts numerous global congress and conferences having risen 28 places to 72nd in the world for meetings and conventions.   A third congress and conference centre has now been revealed by VisitDenmark that will be located at Skejby by the city’s new university hospital, which is one of Europe’s largest.  A large Bjarke Ingels inspired waterfront venue is already underway including a 500+ room business hotel and will be operated by Scandic.  

“Year-to-date there has been continued growth in inbound tourism and international arrivals of around +10% so far in Aarhus hotels”, according to VisitDenmark, “with continued growth from major markets such as Germany, Norway and Sweden, but also high growth from the second tier including Spain, Netherlands, Belgium and Poland”.  Aarhus Airport also noted that with growth of up to +250% year on year, some smaller markets are now very much of medium scale value in visitor flows and include Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland and the USA, yet to be directly connected by air with Aarhus which is the central point of Scandinavia’s fifth largest metropolitan area and highest tourism growth economy for the last five years.