Active on Airport Charges

Today Malmö Airport attracts around 1.6 million passengers a year and the airport prides itself on its low costs, fast handling processes and flexible ground services for its airline customers.

Malmö's incentive programme consists of two discount schemes: a 'New Route Incentive' and a 'Passenger Growth Bonus'. These incentives may be combined, which in turn helps airlines to minimise the level of risk associated with a new start-up route.

The incentive for new routes gives airlines a 100% discount on take-off charges as well as a 50% reduction in the passenger charge - a scheme that is valid for five years.

The passenger growth bonus reduces the remaining 50% of the passenger charge in year one and gives the full passenger charge back to the airline for every passenger increase from year two - as long as there is growth.

Key factors affecting Malmö Airport's pricing policy are that the airport is not slot-coordinated, there are no TNC-charges invoiced from Eurocontrol and the PRM services are free. It is often also said that time is money and the fact that Malmö Airport is not congested also makes a difference to an airline's operating costs.

Malmö Airport offers a "one terminal solution", with handling capacity for more than double the current throughput, facilitating a stress-free shopping and dining experience for arriving and departing passengers, all under one roof.

As well as providing quicker and more flexible processes for passengers, having one terminal also enables Malmö Airport to reduce aircraft turnaround times to 20 minutes. With three handling agents at the airport, the costs of handling and the services provided are very attractive.

Strategic Location

Malmö Airport is positioned in a dynamic region of Scandinavia where there are a number of research clusters such as Medicon Valley and the Öresund Food Excellence, plus a wide range of global business and industries and million euro research projects, such as the ESS and Max IV.

Plus, Sweden's southern region, also called Skåne, is a region of strong growth, with a growing number of national and international offices moving into the region. More than 30 larger housing projects are being initiated within 30-minutes of the airport and there is a clear increase in both visitors and the number of people moving to Skåne.

The number of bed nights spent in the region by visitors from key markets such as Norway, UK, Holland, Italy, France, US and China grew by 9%-15% during 2009.

Denmark is another large market for south Sweden. On current scheduled routes, around 10% of Malmö Airport's traffic is Danish, which the airport attributes to the current exchange rates, making Sweden cheap for the Danes. The 'Drive n' Fly' packages it offers Danish passengers allows up to a 50% discount on the local bridge toll, as well as parking fees at the airport.

Key Unserved Markets

With so much international activity in the region, the demand and need for international air traffic from Malmö Airport is clear.

The airport sees demand for between 20,000 and 80,000 O&D one-way passengers (depending on the destination) to each of the following cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Helsinki, London, Malaga, Milan, Munich, Oslo and Rome.

There are other underserved routes from the south of Scandinavia, for markets such as Venice, Firenze, Alicante, Pristina, Sarajevo and Ljubljana, some of which do no currently have any direct connections.

Click Here to visit Malmo's airport marketing profile.

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…