Best spring month in six years at Copenhagen Airport

With a traffic flow of more than 2.7 million passengers, this May was the busiest spring month for six years at Copenhagen Airport. In addition, 12 May marked a single-day record of 107,000 travellers passing through the airport. That bodes well for the summer season starting shortly where up to nine million passengers are expected to pass through the airport during the three months of summer.

May was a busy month at Copenhagen Airport. More than 2.7 million passengers passed through the terminals, 107,514 of them in a single day. That is the highest passenger number at the airport on any day in May ever.

“Danes have had a big case of the travel bug this spring. We now have days with more than 100,000 travellers – that is 2.5 times the seating capacity at Parken, the national football arena in Copenhagen. That is a lot of people! In fact, passenger traffic in May of this year was less than 16,000 short of setting a record for the busiest month of May in the airport’s history. That says a lot about the eagerness to travel, not only in Denmark but internationally as well,” says Peter Krogsgaard, Chief Commercial Officer of Copenhagen Airports A/S.

The one-day record was set on Sunday 12 May, which for many marked the final day of the Ascencion Day long weekend, and it was also the day thousands of fans from most of Europe travelled home after attending the Eurovision Song Contest final in Malmoe on the Saturday evening.

The total pax number for May ended at 2,734,403, which was a massive 14 per cent more than last year. The increase was partly driven by SAS, Norwegian and Ryanair, which reported passenger increases of 18 to 27 per cent over the same month last year. As usual, London tops the top ten list, but city destinations such as Amsterdam, Milan and Istanbul are also among the most popular destinations.

Asian destinations improving
Among the long-haul routes, Asian destinations were increasingly popular. With traffic up by 34 per cent over May of 2023, indications are that traffic to and from Asia is moving in the right direction. The largest improvements were on flights to China, as those passenger numbers were up by 82 per cent.

There has been an increasing number of departures to Chinese destinations during the past few months, and with Air China adding more over the summer, there will be daily flights between Copenhagen and Beijing. Passenger numbers bear witness to sound demand for these routes.

“We are delighted to see traffic recovering on routes to Asia. Several airlines continue to face the challenge of having to avoid Russian airspace, so it is extremely positive to see traffic increasing all the same. Hopefully, the daily departures to Beijing over the summer will help sustain the positive trend, and we hope to get more destinations on our route map in the upcoming period,” says Krogsgaard.

Ready for a good and busy summer
The school summer holidays are coming up in a few weeks, a time when many people choose to fly south to the warm and sunny climes of southern Europe. During the three summer months, as many as nine million passengers will pass through the airport terminals. Copenhagen Airport is ready for the many summer holiday makers.

“There is no doubt that the coming months will be very busy at the airport, but we are well-prepared and ready to welcome the many holiday-bound travellers who will be passing through our terminals to go on one of the 290 routes available this summer,” says Peter Krogsgaard.

Considering the outlook for several days with more than 100,000 passengers at the airport, Peter Krogsgaard recommends travellers to arrive at the airport well ahead of their departure time. The general recommendation is to be at the airport two hours before departure if travelling within Europe and three hours if you are travelling to destinations outside Europe.