Copenhagen Airport is going through more than its fair share of upheavals as it begins a year when passenger traffic is on course to reach 2019 levels once again – and perhaps surpass them
The list of changes, most of them outside the airport’s control, reads:
The appointment of new CEO Christian Poulsen in December 2023 following the departure of well-regarded head Thomas Woldbye to run London Heathrow; The restructuring of hub carrier SAS with new owners and a fresh strategy; The shift of SAS from the Star Alliance to SkyTeam; The negotiation of a new multi-year charges deal with airlines; The loss of Asia-Pacific traffic due to the closure of Russian airspace following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Throughout this turbulent time, Morten Mortensen, who has served as Senior Director Airline Sales at Copenhagen Airports since 2016, has seen the airport ride the storm and emerge bruised but ready for the post-pandemic aviation era.
“It is a testament to the underlying strength of the Danish and Scandinavian markets that our recovery has been so strong,” said Mortensen.
“In 2023 we handled 26.8 million passengers, a 21% growth over 2022 and by far our best year since Covid,” he noted. This figure was pleasingly well over the 26 million the airport was forecasting at the beginning of the year and made it easily the largest hub airport in northern Europe.
Copenhagen’s peak traffic year was 2019, when it handled just over 30 million passengers.
“We are in the top three hubs in terms of recovery in Europe,” said Mortensen, who likes to compare Copenhagen’s performance against hubs of a similar size such as Vienna and Zurich.
One of Copenhagen’s success stories is a strong increase in transfer traffic, which rose to 4.8 million passengers in 2023.
The increase in traffic comes from many factors and has occurred even though the future of Copenhagen’s largest customer SAS, which has a 32% market share at the airport, has been so uncertain.
SAS is in the final stages of emerging from a self-declared bankruptcy process (see related story on p32). And while rumours about the size, shape and future direction of the carrier abound, no-one knows the exact story yet.
However, some things are a given. “Their offering as a Nordic hub will have to be attractive and together with the airport, we are required to deliver a good transfer product. The question is, of what scale?” said Mortensen.
Today, 11 of the entire fleet of 12 widebodies that SAS operates already fly from Copenhagen today, he said. This means that Copenhagen is well positioned to continue as an important Nordic hub.
Atlanta bound
However, the shift of SAS from Star Alliance to SkyTeam is already leading to a significant new transatlantic route launch. In June SAS will begin a daily service to Atlanta, the home base of SkyTeam’s anchor US carrier Delta Air Lines.
Hub carriers seldom move alliances because it means a fundamental shift in strategy, breaking up joint ventures and codeshare relationships and establishing new ones. However, with Air France-KLM being one of the investors in the consortium acquiring a significant stake in SAS, a move to SkyTeam was inevitable.
The move from Star and away from a focus on partnerships with carriers from that alliance, including Europe’s powerful Lufthansa Group, will signal the largest shift in alliance membership on the continent.
It is a reality that all the airport partners of SAS face, and they will all be hoping it brings a renewed growth focus to the carrier that will benefit them.
“Being a member of SkyTeam will undoubtedly open up new opportunities for SAS and could bring improvements for Copenhagen,” said Mortensen. “We are quite optimistic SAS will come out stronger being part of a larger alliance group, not least in terms of potential development to the US.”
With the Air France-KLM hubs at Amsterdam and Paris eventually running short of capacity the ability of the Air France-KLM Group to grow will inevitably turn to other airports, such as Copenhagen.
However, the SAS transfer to SkyTeam does not mean Copenhagen is seeing an exodus of Star carriers; nor does it fear such a development. “We do not expect to see much difference in seat capacity from Star members, including those in the Lufthansa Group,” said Mortensen.
“There is actually probably the chance to add even more flights from Star carriers, for example to feed hubs like Frankfurt and Vienna,” he explained.
The airport has also been encouraged to see several Star carriers with long-haul services to Copenhagen increase capacity this year. These include Singapore Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air India and Thai Airways.
Ryanair returns
One carrier that is making a welcome return to Copenhagen is Ryanair. It closed its airport base there because of local union issues in 2015, but remained operational with several routes and returned to base two aircraft once again at the hub this winter.
The re-addition of Copenhagen added to its existing Danish base at Billund. Ryanair noted that it is the third-largest carrier already at Copenhagen operating 20 routes and carrying 2.3 million passengers annually to and from the destination. The two new aircraft based there will see the airline offering 24 routes including new services to Dusseldorf, Faro, Paris and Warsaw.
Ryanair will operate at Copenhagen’s dedicated low-cost terminal called CPH Go. Carriers that wish to operate at this terminal must fulfil different requirements to those at the other terminals, possessing both a runway slot and a terminal slot, said Mortensen.
The terminal slot is a strict 30-minute window in which the carrier can only use the terminal for a 30-minute turnaround, he explained. The fee to use CPH Go is lower than at the standard terminals with a passenger charge that is about 15% less, said Mortensen.
Tariffs at Copenhagen have been revised upwards in the past several months. A new four-year deal was agreed with Copenhagen in an understandably tough negotiation that included the airport’s main carriers such as SAS, Norwegian, Ryanair and easyJet as well as representation from IATA.
Charges at Copenhagen had not been increased since 2013. So: “It was a necessary move. From our perspective it is necessary for us to invest in increasing our capacity and gives us the ability to invest in our transformation to becoming a sustainable airport,” said Mortensen.
In terms of terminal development Copenhagen has restarted a project that originally began in pre-Covid days to expand Terminal 3, particularly the airport’s baggage handling capacity. Completion is planned for 2027-28.
