Helsinki Airport Profiled: An Interview With Kimmo Mäki, CEO Finavia.
1 minute read
Introduction by: Peter Marshall
Welcome back to our video series from this year’s ACI Europe Commercial and Retail Conference. And what better way than to start with Kimmo’s interview. It is a refreshingly open and transparent interview. Having committed to the extraordinarily brave move of a 1 billion euro investment during and post Covid, the all-new and award-winning Helsinki Airport can now handle 30 million passengers a year, and it is a beacon to others.
But, as we know, Finland and its main airport has been faced with many geopolitical issues since Covid. We will not dwell on these, but the simple result is that the airport has not kept pace with others – but not all – in Europe who have now matched, even exceeded 2019 levels.
Yet all the elements for a fast recovery are there. So we focus on the operational advances of the new single terminal model, the airport’s growth projections, the customer experience, sustainable initiatives and, of course, the brand new retail spaces that open up a whole new and exciting world for passengers travelling through the airport.
“It’s not the time to stay in one place. We have to move on”, states Kimmo and this is central to his belief that change is good and should be a constant. That’s a powerful statement to an otherwise conservative industry.
