Norwegian airport operator Avinor is in a buoyant mood after handling more than 4.5 million passengers during August, up 84% over the same period last year.
Gaute Skallerud Riise, vice president of traffic development remarked: “Aviation is a good indicator of levels of activity in our country as a whole, so it is gratifying to see that nine out of ten passengers returned during the month of August. This means a lot to the airlines and other related companies that were hit very hard by the pandemic. It is also important for Norwegian business and the tourism sector following two extremely demanding years,”
International traffic remains the biggest driver, with a year-on-year increase of 246% to 1.93 million passengers, while the number of domestic customers rose by 37% to almost 1.86 million.
Commercial air transport movements at Avinor’s 43 domestic airports, covering scheduled, charter and cargo flights together with offshore helicopter operations, also grew substantially for the month from 44,169 to 58,113, though this remains marginally lower than the 2019 high of 59,405.
There were several stand-out performances from the operator’s portfolio, with almost 2.58 million passengers travelling to and from Oslo/Gardermoen, up 119%.
Stine Ramstad Westby, director of Oslo Airport, commented: “It’s great to have the passengers and traffic back. We are one of the region’s biggest employers, and as Norway’s main airport we are the port of entry to the country for tens of thousands of tourists and the gateway to the world for Norwegians and Norwegian business.”
Elsewhere, Svalbard also more than doubled its passenger throughput compared with the same month last year (22,990), this growth driven in part by strong demand for cruise and travel experiences in the Arctic. Molde, Ålesund, Bergen and Stavanger in western Norway also recorded sizeable traffic gains of between 70 and 90%.
Photo credit: Øystein Løwer / Avinor
