Billund Airport, which bills itself as the gateway to western Denmark, has motored past its 2019 traffic levels
“What I tell people is that we are the airport in the middle of nowhere, but in the centre of everything,” said Jesper Klausholm, Director for Airline Relations, Communication and Marketing at Billund, when asked to sum up the unique qualities of his airport.
He says this because while the town of Billund has only 7,000 inhabitants, the population within 90 minutes’ drive of the airport is a cool 2.3 million. This means Billund has the fourth-largest catchment area in Scandinavia on this basis and makes it three times as large as any of its competitors in western Denmark.
The fundamentals of a strong catchment plus the rapid recovery of the Danish travel market after the pandemic have driven Billund well past its 2019 traffic peak of 3.7 million passengers, said Klausholm.
“Last year, we actually grew 7% compared to our 2022 level to just shy of the 4 million mark,” he explained. “Prior to Covid we had 10 years of consecutive growth so in our strategy we didn’t know when the market would return but our aim was to make certain to beat our previous traffic levels when the market did come back.”
That has come about because of a combination of the strong market, plus a well-executed airline marketing and incentive plan. “We’ve been working hard to secure the same portfolio of airlines and routes that we had before Covid,” said Klausholm.
Hub connections
“We are certainly back and a bit more. The only route which has not restarted is SAS to Copenhagen,” he noted.
At present, SAS focuses its hub service with frequent links from Billund to Oslo and Stockholm. Klausholm would love to see SAS return with a Copenhagen link too, but for now that is a network gap.
However, there are hub additions. Notably these include two new Star Alliance carrier connections, with Lufthansa serving Munich on a twice-daily basis while Swiss has a twice-weekly service to Zurich.
Another carrier adding service at Billund is Air France-KLM, explained Klausholm. This summer the SkyTeam member will serve the airport with six daily flights to Amsterdam and three dailies to Paris.
Another new route this summer sees AirBaltic serving Tallinn while Norwegian is launching services to Malaga, Majorca, Alicante and Stockholm. “This is a big move for Norwegian here into Billund as until now they have only had Oslo,” noted Klausholm.
A novel new entrant at Billund is Air Greenland, which launched a weekly service to Kangerlussuaq Airport in summer 2023. “This is a big win for us, and we are very proud Air Greenland chose Billund as only their second international route,” said Klausholm.
A key reason for the selection of Billund is evident from analysis, conducted by the airport, that shows close to 15% of all people in Billund Airport’s catchment have family members or friends in Greenland.
“We will have new airports in Greenland and the Greenlandic market will start to be opened up a lot more than it has been in the past,” said Klausholm. The Air Greenland service has been paused for this winter but will resume on a year-round basis from summer 2024.
In terms of further network development, Klausholm sees more potential to add to Billund’s 12 direct routes into Italy, with Florence and Naples at the top of the unserved airport list. Lisbon, Nice, Marseille and Bordeaux are there too.
Building frequencies
New routes are always being sought, but Klausholm’s team is also laser-focused on making the best of what it has got. “To be very honest we are working a lot more with our current customers, for example trying to get daily flights on several routes, or in the case of Heathrow trying to get to double-daily flights.”
Existing routes where the market has reached or is approaching this point are Helsinki, Istanbul and Warsaw. “We really would like to develop with our existing customers because they know our market, they know what our market can do, so it makes a lot of sense to build frequency and capacity with existing customers in addition to trying to get new customers,” he explained.
Today, Billund’s network is exclusively focused on Europe (apart from Greenland), but there is potential for flights further afield. “The next logical step in developing the market with new destinations is the Middle East, as well as the East Coast of the US, especially New York,” said Klausholm.
Billund has one home base carrier, Sun-Air, which operates a fleet of 32-seat Dornier 328Jets as a British Airways franchise partner on routes to London City, Manchester, Gothenburg and Dusseldorf.
Although a regional carrier, Sun-Air is significant to Billund for the business traffic it carries. “Almost 25% of our passengers here are business related so they are filling a very important niche for us,” said Klausholm.
The airport’s traffic surveys in fact tell it that at the end of 2023 business traffic surpassed 2019 levels, which is remarkable and testament to the strength of the industries and manufacturing base in the surrounding region.
Billund has a plan of continuous expansion of its terminal and other facilities up until 2040 to enable it to handle 7 million passengers by that time.
