Swedavia Announces Revised Charges

Swedish airport operator Swedavia has revised its proposed aeronautical charges for next year reducing its price increases due to the current market conditions. After reducing its fees for many years, Swedavia had revealed earlier this year that it would increase its charges by 2.7 per cent, in line with expected inflation. This, it said, was to offset increased capital expenditure in baggage handling systems glycol management infrastructure, and to ensure high quality services for passengers with reduced mobility. However, it has now confirmed that due to market uncertainty and the current global economic crisis it has revised its proposal and will now only increase its fees by 1.9 per cent for 2012.

Despite the market conditions, the number of passengers using Swedavia’s airports continues to grow with passenger traffic in November up nine per cent to 2.7 million compared with the same month last year. The number of domestic passengers rose by eleven per cent, while international passengers numbers were up seven per cent. Across the first eleven months of the year more than 29 million passengers have travelled to or from one of Swedavia’s eleven airports, a growth of 13 per cent.

“Even today, we’re seeing substantial interest in our airports, which contributes to greater access to and from the whole country,” said Torborg Chetkovich, Chief Executive Officer, Swedavia. “More passengers means that we can continue our work to attract more direct routes.”

The fastest growing facility in the company’s portfolio during November was Malmö Airport which witnessed a 20 per cent growth. In the same month, Stockholm Bromma Airport surpassed the two million passenger milestone, a seven per cent Year-on-Year growth on 2010.