Danes flying like never before

Despite 2012 being noted as the year Denmark’s second-largest airline, Cimber Sterling A/S, filed for bankruptcy, Danish airports still managed to set a new passenger record.

Even though the Cimber Sterling crash caused a 20 per cent drop in domestic flights, the total number of passengers travelling through Danish airports rose by 0.8 per cent, the highest ever, according to figures from the Danish Transport Authority.

All in all, 14.2 million passengers took off from Danish airports last year, 120,000 more than in 2011.

Copenhagen is still the nexus

The increase is the result of a 5 per cent growth in the number of international travellers, who continue to be the largest group of customers frequenting Danish airports.

However, one in five international passengers never takes one stepoutside the airport, as they are transit passengers on a layover in Denmark.

According to the Danish Transport Authority, these figures prove that Copenhagen is still an important nexus for northern European air traffic.

This is also demonstrated by the airports passengers travel to from Denmark, with neighbouring capitals Oslo and Stockholm in front with 735,000 and 645,000 transit passengers, respectively.

However, if all the passengers from London’s three airports are lumped together, the British capital takes the lead by receiving one million passengers a year from Denmark.