Back to Headlines

Kolari and Pajala fit together

Bengt Niska, Mayor of Sweden’s Pajala municipality, Pekka Vaattovaara, chair of Kolari municipality Executive Board and Tapio Niittyranta, Kolari’s Head of Department of Commerce had a fruitful meeting just before Christmas regarding future cooperation. The emphasis was on traffic connections via Pajala airport and Kolari railway station.

Cooperation between Pajala and Kolari municipalities isn’t a brand new issue.  "Already 20 years ago we had coffee once in a while but didn’t get further than that" says Bengt Niska, Mayor of Pajala, and believes that both parties are now more prepared to work together.

Kolari’s Chairman Pekka Vaattovaara agrees adding that he drove all the way from Helsinki overnight, "That’s just how important I see this as" he says.

Joint airport …

The cooperation isn’t just a chat over a cup of coffee now, and has taken its first step – extending the Pajala airport is clearly a joint project.

"Kolari municipality is donating 370 000 Swedish Crowns, the Union of Lapland will invest nearly a million Crowns, Pajala municipality invests 10 million, and then we received 11 million from the Interreg-project" Niska lists, and says the total cost of the project is 45 million Crowns. 

The rest of the funds come from the State of Sweden.

So the extension of the airport has taken off well and the results are to be seen fairly soon – the airport is expected to be in better condition already between September, October time.  "A runway of just over 2km is then complete, so it can take planes of 200 persons" Niska explains. 

Yllas and Lapland were needed for the project not just for funding but for their travel industry.  "" We would never have been given the money without them; Yllas is known everywhere in Sweden."

In order to return the favor Pajala airport creates a new, very important link between Yllas' travel business and the rest of the world. It is only 80km from Yllas, which is about an hour’s drive.

… and railway

Whereas Kolari is keen on Pajala’s airport, people in Pajala are interested in Kolari’s railway track. It just increased in value when a Canadian mining company showed interest towards the Sahavaara ore factory in Pajala’s Kaunisvaara.

" They will test-quarry it in January, after which we’ll know whether the mine can be in use in from 2008-2009" Mayor Niska describes.

"Price of raw material is now high and the train connection is near – there is no reason for Partek not to maintain the rail tracks" Niska says.

Pajala-Yllas airport

After hours of work in Pajala they came to the decision to extend the airport. The runway will grow from 30 by 1400 meters to 45 by 2300 meters. A marketing project for the airport is also launched, with Kolari municipality and Lapland Union on board.
The people of Pajala and Yllas gathered at Hotel Yllas Saaga January 12th to discuss how to maximize the benefits of the extension.

It is easy to build an airport, but it is another thing to create good connections to get there. Everyone turned out to be very willing to work around this problem.

Pajalans suggested the name of the airport as Pajala-Yllas. Everyone agreed on this, even though they joked about the order of the two words.

Interest from abroad

Building good connections is the biggest challenge, it isn’t, however, impossible. Pajala airport’s director, Jukka Niskala, has been in communications with Ryanair’s route developer as well as with the biggest travel agencies in England, and has received positive feedback. Ryanair instantly recognized Pajala as ‘the town right next to Yllas’.

Lasse Malmstrom from Rajamaa in Muonio found Dusseldof in Germany as a good link for flights to North Sweden, since it provides good connections to get to from rest of Europe. Lufthansa’s daughter company German Wings is ready to fly into Pajala planes taking up 50, 92 and 152 persons. Lasse says it is really important to have small companies flying in as well.

Hard work

Even though the meeting was held in high spirits, those attending had to remain realistic. Creating traffic links demands a lot of work and brings problems with it as well – Pajala airport was designed to cater for just 50 persons.

The common decision was that a solution to this would be found. Some of the ideas bouncing around included bringing a tent to the airport, check-ins could be done in a big building in the centre of Pajala. It was also suggested that people coming from Yllas could be checked in at the customs buildings by the border.

It was agreed by all that it is crucial we can prove that there is a definite need for this airport.

Coordinator Jan Tornberg ended the meeting stating the first plane will be landing during the first week of December.

Roughly translated from Kuukkeli, January 14, 2007