Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (, ) , or simply Helsinki Airport, is the main international airport serving Helsinki, the capital of Finland, as well as its surrounding metropolitan area, and the Uusimaa region in Finland. The airport is located in the neighbouring city of Vantaa, about west of Tikkurila, the administrative centre of Vantaa and north of Helsinki's city centre. The airport is operated by state-owned Finavia. The facility covers a total of 1,800 hectares (4,448 acres) of land and contains three runways.
The airport is by far the busiest in Finland (with 20 times the traffic of the next-busiest, Rovaniemi) and the fourth busiest in the Nordic countries in terms of passenger numbers. About 90% of Finland's international air traffic passes through Helsinki Airport. In 2025, Helsinki Airport had nearly 17 million passengers, 89% of whom were international passengers and 11% domestic passengers. On average, the airport handles around 350 departures a day.
The airport is the main hub for Finnair, the flag carrier of Finland, and its subsidiary Nordic Regional Airlines. It is also an operating base for Norwegian Air Shuttle. As of October 2025, the airport has around 20 regularly operating airlines and more than 100 direct routes, of which around 80 are intra-European and 25 intercontinental routes to Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and North America.
Originally built for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, the airport today provides jobs for 25,000 people and 1,500 companies operate at the airport.
Helsinki Airport has historically been a major transit hub between Europe and Asia. However, its role as a key transfer point has been constrained by the closure of Russian airspace in 2022, which forced airlines to reroute flights and lengthen connections. Despite the closure, Helsinki Airport recorded 2,299,243 international transfer passengers in 2025, which represents an increase of around 10.6 % compared with 2024, showing recovery in long-haul services and transfer activity.
Helsinki Airport's minimum transit time of 35 minutes is among the shortest in Europe. According to Finavia's survey, as many as one in every three passengers select their flight route based on the transit airport.
History
Opening and the first intercontinental service (1952–1960s) The planning of a new airport for Helsinki began in the 1940s, when it became obvious that the Helsinki-Malmi Airport could not handle the increasing number of passengers or the new, heavier aircraft. A new site was found some from Helsinki city centre, in an area that today belongs to the city of Vantaa (until 1971 Vantaa was called Helsingin maalaiskunta). Some of the construction work was done by prison laborers. The airport opened temporarily in July 1952 for that year's Summer Olympics, held in Helsinki.
The first two Aero Oy DC-3 aircraft, OH-LCC Tiira with its captain Olli Puhakka and first officer Pertti Uuksulainen, and OH-LCD Lokki, landed in Vantaa on 26 June 1952, and the first scheduled international airplane to land on the airport was the DC-6 B Torgil Viking of Scandinavian Airlines on 26 October 1952. While Aero (now Finnair) used Helsinki-Malmi Airport, charter flights were directed to the new airport on 26 October 1952. The airport originally had a single runway, the second runway being built four years later in 1956, and the first airplane hangar was also built in the same year. The airport also received its first radar in the same year. Regular jet flight operations began in 1959.
A new passenger terminal opened in 1969, while the first transatlantic service to New York was inaugurated on 15 May 1969. A contiguous fence around the entire airport area was built in the spring of 1973.Saltikoff, Valeri: Helsinki-Vantaan kuusi vuosikymmentä: Suomen ilmailumuseon näyttelyjulkaisu, p. 18. Finnish Aviation Museum 2012. .
During this time period, the airport was also called Seutula Airport after the nearby village Seutula.
New terminal and first Asian flights (1970s–1990s) The year 1973 saw the first security checks being carried out for international flights. The name Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was used from 1977, with the airport being known as the Helsinki Airport before this.Helsinki-Vantaan lentoasema avattiin 50 vuotta sitten , Finavia 17 June 2002. Accessed on 26 February 2010. The postal code of the airport was 01530 Helsinki-Lento until 1974, 01530 Helsinki-Vantaa-Lento from 1974 to 1983 and 01530 Vantaa from 1983 onwards.
The Finnish Defence Forces surrounded the airport in late autumn 1977, in order to protect the airport from a possible terrorist strike by the Red Army Faction.
In 1983, the airport began offering the first non-stop service from Western Europe to Japan as Finnair commenced regular service between Helsinki and Tokyo with a single McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30ER. In the 1970s, Pan Am operated flights from Helsinki to the US. The passenger terminal was expanded for the first time in 1983 and five years later, in 1988, the airport handled over six million passengers annually.
In 1991, Delta Air Lines began its operations at the airport. A new terminal was constructed for domestic flights in 1993. In 1996, the international terminal was expanded and merged with the domestic terminal. At the same time, the new control tower was completed. In 1997, a new VIP President terminal was opened for official international state visits. In November 1999, the international terminal was further expanded and the lobby for arriving and departing passengers was built.
New millennium and expansion of non-Schengen area (2000–2009) A historical event in 2000 was that the annual number of visitors to the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport surpassed 10 million.Helsinki-Vantaan viisi vuosikymmentä , Finavia. Accessed on 26 February 2010. Approach traffic control moved from the so-called "cave" into its new overground premises.
New border controls of the Schengen Agreement were taken into use in 2001. The third runway was inaugurated on 28 November 2002 and the first user was Finnair's McDonnell Douglas MD-11 en route to New York. In 2004, the international terminal was again expanded and a new shopping area was opened for long-haul passengers. A new air cargo service was opened for passengers with overweight luggage. 24 new automatic check-in terminals were taken into use in 2006.Helsinki-Vantaalla on otettu käyttöön uudet lähtöselvitysautomaatit , Finavia 29 November 2006. Accessed on 26 February 2010.
On 13 August 2007 a new Hilton hotel, Hilton Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was opened near the airport, with 330 rooms.Hilton Helsinki Airport Hotel , Finavia. Accessed on 13 February 2015.Hilton Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, Finavia. Accessed on 26 February 2010. Independent use of parallel runways started in November 2007.Ollikainen, Hannu: Aamuruuhkat helpottavat Helsinki-Vantaalla, Kauppalehti 26 November 2007. Accessed on 26 November 2007.
A free-of-charge WLAN network was opened at the airport on 25 November 2008.Finavia avasi ilmaisen langattoman verkon Helsinki-Vantaalle, Finavia 25 November 2008. Accessed on 30 December 2008.
In the autumn of 2009, the airport saw a great deal of industrial action, as Finavia outsourced check-in security controls. The security controls were moved over to the cleaning and building service concern SOL. The labour agreements also changed. SOL started co-operation negotiations for 80 employees in January 2010. Outsourcing the security services had a positive impact on Finavia's economy, as this allowed the company to reach significant cost savings during the first half of 2010 compared to the second half of the previous year. This was largely because of the outsourcing of the security services at the Helsinki Airport.Finavia Oyj: Osavuosikatsaus 1.1.–30.6.2010, Finavia 25 August 2010. Accessed on 27 August 2010. In late 2012, the Labour Court of Finland gave a statement that the security services at the airport were under the labour agreement of the security guard industry. After this, SOL terminated its contract, to end at the end of 2014 in the middle of its contract period.
Finnair outsourced its baggage handling services from its daughter company Northport to Barona Handling in November to December 2009, after which the baggage handling employees went on an illegal strike for four days. During New Year from 2009 to 2010, thousands of bags lay untouched at the airport, inaccessible to their owners. According to the employees, there were one tenth less people handling the loading of the baggage than before. The Aviation Union accused Barona of neglecting safety regulations when unloading the accumulated pile of baggage during the industrial action.IAU: Helsinki-Vantaalla rikottu turvamääräyksiä, YLE 10 December 2009. Accessed on 26 February 2010. In January 2010, the Finnish News Agency wrote that some of the employees had sent baggage to the wrong destination on purpose.Helsinki-Vantaan turvatarkastajat palasivat töihin , MTV.fi 16 May 2009. Accessed on 26 February 2010.Lentokentän turvatarkastajat joutuvat pakkolomalle , Taloussanomat 5 January 2010. Accessed on 26 February 2010.Työntekijät kiistävät sabotoineensa matkatavaroiden käsittelyä , Helsingin Sanomat 9 January 2010. Accessed on 26 February 2010. In 2009, the airport dropped out of the list of the Airport Service Quality research.Helsinki-Vantaa haluaa takaisin lentoasemien parhaimmistoon , YLE 26 February 2010. Accessed on 26 February 2010.
In 2009, an expansion of Terminal 2 was completed. The total floor area was . The same year witnessed the opening of a new shopping area and spa for passengers on long-haul flights, the removal of a terminal-specific division between domestic and international flights in favour a division by airline, and the renovation of Terminal 1 for international flights.Lennot operoidaan Helsinki-Vantaalla uusista terminaaleista 5.8. kello 5 alkaen, Finavia 5 August 2009. Accessed on 5 August 2009. In the same year, TAP Air Portugal commenced service between Helsinki and Lisbon.
Five new passenger bridges for wide-body aircraft were opened in 2009. The spa was closed down in 2012 because of lack of use.Helsinki-Vantaan lentokenttäkylpylä lopetti, Ilta-Sanomat 2 March 2012. Accessed on 22 January 2014. In 2011, the annual number of passengers at the airport grew by 15.5% to 14.9 million passengers. About 25% of passengers were transferring to a connecting flight at the airport. 12.2 million passengers were on international flights and 2.7 million on domestic flights. A total of 1.63 million passengers were on flights to Asia.Suomenennätys lentomatkustuksen määrässä, Siivet magazine issue #1/2012, p. 7. Apali Oy.
Significant growth and expansion (2010–2019) During the 2010s, Helsinki Airport experienced large increases in the number of annual passengers. In 2010, the airport handled 12,883,399 passengers, an increase of 2.2 percent compared to 2009. Air freight increased by 29.4 percent.
In April 2010, Norwegian Air Shuttle opened its first routes to Oslo and Stockholm using Boeing 737 jets. Now the airline is one of the largest operators at the airport with almost 40 destinations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In 2011, Helsinki Airport saw its biggest growth in a single year in the number of passengers. The number of annual passengers was increased by 2 million passengers and the airport reached the milestone of 14 million passengers. However, easyJet canceled three routes, from Helsinki to Manchester, London–Gatwick, and Paris–Charles de Gaulle, citing weak demand at Helsinki.
In November 2011, Austrian Airlines canceled its Vienna–Helsinki operations. In the same year, Czech Airlines ceased its Helsinki operations due to low demand. A year after, LOT Polish Airlines canceled its service to Helsinki. In 2014, a number of airlines such as Aer Lingus, Germanwings, and S7 Airlines canceled services to Helsinki.