Busy autumn season and 13 new routes out of Copenhagen
A total of 2.5 million passengers passed through Copenhagen Airport in October, representing a 12 per cent year-on-year increase. The appetite for travel endures into the winter season, as the airlines are operating their winter programmes. There are no less than 228 direct routes out of Copenhagen, including thirteen new routes to destinations in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, among other places.
A lot of people chose to extend the summer by taking a trip during the autumn school break, and a total of 2,542,058 passengers made this October the busiest autumn month at Copenhagen Airport for several years. Friday 13 October, which marked the start of the autumn school break, was the second-busiest day for travel in 2023 so far with 100,725 passengers passing through the airport. The record for the year to date is 101,225 passengers set on Friday 14 July.
“We had a very good month in October. On the busiest days of the period, we served around 100,000 passengers, which is much in line with passenger traffic during the summer. Particularly the days bordering the school break were popular for getting away to warmer and sunnier climes in southern Europe or for a big city break somewhere in Europe,” says Chief Commercial Officer Peter Krogsgaard of Copenhagen Airports A/S.
The passenger number for October was up by 12 per cent over the same month last year, when Copenhagen Airport registered 2.3 million travellers.
Màlaga and Barcelona in Spain are the most popular sunny, warm-weather destinations, while London is a clear number one among big city destinations with 165,000 travellers.
Diverse winter programme at CPH
The airlines started their winter traffic programmes at the end of October. There is a very strong offering of destinations from Copenhagen Airport, with as many as 13 new routes – including to Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
So far, there are 228 routes out of Copenhagen in this year’s winter period, which is eight more than last year and one more than in 2019.
“We are delighted with this year’s winter programme and the many routes out of Copenhagen. It is fantastic that we have now more routes than we did in 2019 at this time of year. We are quite proud that many airlines seem to be concentrating on Copenhagen. For example, SAS recently reopened its route to Bangkok after it was discontinued ten years ago, so now there are even better opportunities to travel directly to the warm sunshine of Thailand during the winter months,” says Krogsgaard.
The winter programmes offer several long-haul routes. SAS has resumed its flights to Miami while also opening a new direct route to Agadir in Morocco. Etihad Airways has started a service to Abu Dhabi and Nouvelair Tunisie has a direct route to Tunisia.
Within Europe, Wizz Air has opened two new routes: One to Kutaisi in Georgia and one to the Polish city of Katowice, but the carrier has also launched services to Budapest and Gdansk, which are already served by other airlines. During the winter months, Ryanair will have routes from Copenhagen to Paris-Beauvais and Warsaw-Modlin, while continuing its services to Faro in Portugal and Düsseldorf-Weeze in Germany. The Spanish airline Volotea has retained its route to Nantes in France for the winter and will also serve Marseilles during the Christmas holidays.
The winter programme will run until 30 March 2024.
