Helsinki Airport's EUR1 billion investment, to stay competitive

While airports around the world are putting infrastructure projects on hold - the latest is Wellington Airport - Helsinki's Vantaa Airport is forging ahead with a EUR1 billion terminal expansion, which the management hopes will help the airport retain its position as one of the principal hubs for intercontinental traffic in the Nordic countries.

It needs to do so because other regional airports are keen to get a bigger slice of that action if they can.

Finavia has said that the project is a "significant strategic investment for Finland" and that the project is necessary to "maintain our country's competitiveness". It has also argued that the expansion project is "so far advanced that in practice it would not make any economic sense to stop it" and that "we are convinced that the long term air traffic will recover and investments will be needed when the time is ripe".

Finavia needs these improvements to stay ahead of the game where intercontinental connections are concerned, and it is clearly putting its faith in an improvement in the economy next year, along with a continuing easing of lockdown, quarantine and other such arrangements.