Capacity - Finland

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PRB monitoring

▪ Finland registered zero minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2024, which remained zero after the post-ops adjustment process, thus achieving the local target value of 0.05. Delay levels in Finland remained unchanged year-on-year.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 15% below 2019 levels in Finland in 2024.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is 43, being below the 2024 plan in Tampere by 12 FTEs.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Tampere ACC was 10,715, showing a 5.4% increase compared to 2023. Sector opening hours are 20.6% below 2019 levels.

▪ Finland registered an average airport arrival ATFM delay of 0.76 minutes per flight in 2024, thus achieving the local target of 0.77 minutes.

▪ Compared to 2023, average arrival ATFM delays in Finland were 442% higher in 2024, while the number of IFR arrivals increased by 8%.

▪ The main drivers of delays were other, non-ATC related causes, accounting for 65% of delays, and weather, responsible for 35%.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Finland experienced an increase in traffic from 224k flights in 2023, with zero ATFM delay to 242k flights with, yet again, with zero ATFM delay. Traffic levels remain substantially below the 2019 level of 285k flights, mainly due to ramifications from Russia’s war against Ukraine.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

Traffic continued to develope during 2024 but not the same pace with the rest of Europe.The war in Ukraine and the closure of Russian airspace and banning Russian airlines from flying in Finnish airspace continued having a huge impact in traffic in 2024. As a result of the sanctions, all European airlines stopped flying to Asia completely over Finland.

Overflying traffic resulted around 80% compared to the level of 2019. These traffic volumes are expected to continue and this situation remain as a new normal.

There are changes in traffic flows/patterns. The airspace closures have shifted the traffic flows from Russia to Kaliningrad, and these flights have to use the narrow international airspace corridor between Finland and Estonia, and can not use the direct routing that has been used before the war. There is an average of over 400 flights per week.

Also the flights from Europe to Asia are not overflying Finnish airspace anymore because of the airspace closure. Other change is in the flights between Finland (Helsinki) and Japan, where our main operator Finnair flies daily. These flights can’t fly the most direct route anymore because of the airspace closure, and have to fly via northern route above the North Pole.

These changes do not affect the en route capacity performance, but still need to be taken into account when assessing the overall performance of the ANSP.

Finland reached the capacity targets in both KPIs, en-route and terminal. En-route delays have been zero in many years, and the capacity provided for this is due to user demand for as few delays as possible.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

Review of the actual values from the NM dashboard.

Capacity planning

En-route ATFM delay will remain low as the capacity is delivered due to user demand.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Nil

En route Capacity Incentive Scheme

Fintraffic ANS: The Finnish incentive scheme does not permit the payment of bonuses, even though there were zero en route ATFM delays in Finland during 2024.
In accordance with Article 3(3)(a) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1627: The incentive scheme shall cover only the calendar years 2022 to 2024.

Other indicators

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Finland identifies only Helsinki airport as subject to RP3 monitoring. The Airport Operator Data Flow is fully established and the monitoring of all capacity indicators can be performed. Traffic at this airport in 2024 was still 21% lower with respect to 2019,and 8% above 2023 levels.

Average arrival ATFM delays in 2024 were 0.76 min/arr, compared to 0.14 min/arr in 2023. The national target was met. ATFM slot adherence has slightly increased (2023: 95.1%; 2022: 95.5%).

Arrival ATFM delays at Helsinki in 2024 averaged 0.76 min/arr, a drastic increase with respect to 2023 (0.14 min/arr). 65% of these delays were attributed to Aerodrome Capacity followed by 35% attributed to weather.

Finland reports that runway renovation caused significant delays in April, May and June.

The Finnish performance plan sets a national target on arrival ATFM delay for 2023 of 0.77 min/arr. This target was met in 2024 with an actual performance of 0.76 min/arr. The incentive scheme uses modulated pivot values limited CRSTMP delay causes. This pivot value for CRSTMP is 0.02 min/arr during all RP3. According to the attribution of the regulation reason, the actual CRSTMP value for 2024 is 0.00 min/arr. The incentive scheme in the Performance Plan however does not contemplate any bonus.

Other terminal performance indicators (PI#1-3)

Airport level
Airport name
Avg arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)
Slot adherence (PI#1)
ATC pre departure delay (PI#2)
All causes pre departure delay (PI#3)
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Helsinki-Vantaa 0.20 0.10 0.06 0.14 0.76 93.6% 93.1% 95.6% 95.1% 95.5% 0.08 0.08 0.21 0.12 0.22 7.8 11.1 11.5 10.6 12.8

ATFM slot adherence

Helsinki’s ATFM slot compliance was 95.5 %. With regard to the 4.5% of flights that did not adhere, 0.73% were early and 3.74% were late.

ATC pre-departure delay

ATC pre-departure delay at Helsinki (EFHK: 2024: 0.22 min/dep) increased with respect to 2023 but it is still below the pre-pandemic value (0.39 min/dep).

All causes pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Helsinki increased in 2024 (EFHK: 2020: 7.76 min/dep.; 2021: 11.07 min/dep.; 2022: 11.46 min/dep.; 2023: 10.61 min/dep.; 2024: 12.82 min/dep.).