Finavia, the state-owned operator of Finland’s airport network, reported on 10 November that 1.5 million travellers passed through Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in October 2025, the highest monthly total since before the pandemic. The milestone is widely viewed by corporate travel managers as a turning-point for Finland’s connectivity and its attractiveness for expatriate assignments.
Three factors are driving the rebound. First, Asian transfer traffic is gradually returning as carriers re-route long-haul services to skirt Russian airspace yet still leverage Helsinki’s geographic position on the Great Circle route between East Asia and Northern Europe. Finnair and oneworld partners now report weekday load-factors of nearly 80 per cent on key corporate routes to Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai. Second, business-travel budgets have normalised in Finland’s core exporting sectors—technology, clean energy and forestry—pushing up mid-week passenger volumes that traditionally underpin the airport’s profitability. Third, Finavia’s winter-tourism marketing, which bundles Lapland “Santa-season” charters with corporate meetings and incentives, has persuaded Ryanair, Eurowings and Norwegian to up-gauge seasonal services.
![Helsinki-Vantaa Airport tops 1.5 million passengers in October—strongest month since 2019]()
Operationally, Helsinki-Vantaa is coping well with the surge. Finavia says 92 per cent of travellers cleared security in under the EU benchmark of 15 minutes, helped by the €1 billion terminal expansion completed in 2023 that added 33 per cent more border-control capacity and e-gates. The airport is also piloting Digital Travel Credentials (DTC) that allow pre-registered passengers—including many frequent business travellers—to clear border formalities in less than eight seconds, a technology Finavia believes can cut processing costs by 30 per cent once fully rolled out.
For global-mobility and travel-programme leaders, the data point offers practical implications. Capacity is returning fast enough that negotiated corporate fares for 2026 are unlikely to enjoy the deep discounts seen in 2021-22; travel buyers should lock in agreements before year-end. Multinationals running regional headquarters in Helsinki can also anticipate shorter connection times to secondary Asian cities as Finnair’s partners rebuild their schedules.
Analysts at CAPA – Centre for Aviation project that Helsinki-Vantaa will end the year with roughly 17.8 million passengers—still shy of the 21.9 million achieved in 2019 but comfortably above the Nordic-wide recovery rate. If Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea continue reopening, monthly volumes are expected to remain above 1.4 million through Q1 2026, further easing mobility planning for inbound assignees and short-term travellers.
Three factors are driving the rebound. First, Asian transfer traffic is gradually returning as carriers re-route long-haul services to skirt Russian airspace yet still leverage Helsinki’s geographic position on the Great Circle route between East Asia and Northern Europe. Finnair and oneworld partners now report weekday load-factors of nearly 80 per cent on key corporate routes to Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai. Second, business-travel budgets have normalised in Finland’s core exporting sectors—technology, clean energy and forestry—pushing up mid-week passenger volumes that traditionally underpin the airport’s profitability. Third, Finavia’s winter-tourism marketing, which bundles Lapland “Santa-season” charters with corporate meetings and incentives, has persuaded Ryanair, Eurowings and Norwegian to up-gauge seasonal services.
Operationally, Helsinki-Vantaa is coping well with the surge. Finavia says 92 per cent of travellers cleared security in under the EU benchmark of 15 minutes, helped by the €1 billion terminal expansion completed in 2023 that added 33 per cent more border-control capacity and e-gates. The airport is also piloting Digital Travel Credentials (DTC) that allow pre-registered passengers—including many frequent business travellers—to clear border formalities in less than eight seconds, a technology Finavia believes can cut processing costs by 30 per cent once fully rolled out.
For global-mobility and travel-programme leaders, the data point offers practical implications. Capacity is returning fast enough that negotiated corporate fares for 2026 are unlikely to enjoy the deep discounts seen in 2021-22; travel buyers should lock in agreements before year-end. Multinationals running regional headquarters in Helsinki can also anticipate shorter connection times to secondary Asian cities as Finnair’s partners rebuild their schedules.
Analysts at CAPA – Centre for Aviation project that Helsinki-Vantaa will end the year with roughly 17.8 million passengers—still shy of the 21.9 million achieved in 2019 but comfortably above the Nordic-wide recovery rate. If Asian markets such as Japan and South Korea continue reopening, monthly volumes are expected to remain above 1.4 million through Q1 2026, further easing mobility planning for inbound assignees and short-term travellers.
