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Amidst three airports

by Eero Vapa

Last Christmas - New Year season was probably the busiest in Yllas’ history so far. On top of domestic travellers we had visitors from nearly every corner of Europe plus Japan.

Travel industry experts are expecting some clear growth for Christmas travel in the future. More and more accommodation is being constructed, but most tourists reach Yllas via Kittila airport, which could lead to problems in the future due to its capacity. During the Christmas season the airport gets packed with tourists on charter flights, in spring scheduled flights are also full and in the summer there are too few flights, if any.

Lapland Hotels arranged scheduled flights with Kaleva Travel for the spring season. They fly clients from Helsinki to their hotels in Yllas, Levi, Olos and Pallas.

The new Pajala airport will finally be complete by next Christmas, taking in planes with 200 seats. It is an hour’s drive from Yllas which isn’t such a bad thing as the flight time from England is a bit shorter than flying into Kittila. This is a joint project between Kolari municipality and Lapland Union, both giving financial support, and Yllas’ travel companies are working on getting good connections to the airport. The name of the airport, Pajala-Yllas, is a sign of a solid relationship and it was even suggested by the Pajalans, which is great. I believe that the importance of this airport will rise significantly in the future.

The third airport close to Yllas is Aavahelukka, which mostly serves small planes.

Yllas is nicely trapped between three airports, benefiting from all of them nearly without any disadvantages. There isn't any aircraft noise, for instance.

Roughly translated from Kuukkeli, January 14, 2007