Apart from Copenhagen Airports, most of Denmark’s commercial air transport facilities are owned and operated by municipalities. Now Copenhagen may join them, as the government there seeks effectively to renationalise it, which is a worrying trend in Europe.
Aarhus Airport, serving Denmark’s second largest city and economic centre, is seeking one or more investors, having run at a deficit for several years now. It is undergoing what is described as “a managed process in conjunction with experienced international facilitators” to identify “the right kind of partner and opportunity”. It is understood there have been three opportunities at the table in the most recent times.
Historically, it has been a smaller regional airport – perhaps smaller than it should be for a region of 1.4 million people – struggling to reach a million annual passengers, what the consensus regard as the financial break-even point for a regional airport.
However, the airport has been the fastest growing in Denmark since 2018, recovering from the pandemic the fastest in Denmark, and was the first to pass 2019 traffic totals with existing airline partners.
There have been some minor route development breakthroughs of late too, but while Aarhus’ market share has increased since 2019 after gaining traffic from rival airports, in particular Hamburg and Billund, it is still suffering domestic market leakage to Copenhagen – an increasing trend in Denmark. And the financial position, although expected to improve in the next two years due to increasing customer spend and close cost management, is not a good one.
You could easily believe that this is not a good time for any loss-making airport to be seeking out external investment, and certainly not just as the government brings in an aviation tax. While it remains at a low level for the moment, it isn’t critical, but its impact could be noticeable.
But It appears an investor is has now been found, and negotiations should be concluded by the end of 1H2025. The airport is keeping details of the investor close to its chest, but until any deal is closed, the clock ticks relentlessly.