Dr Kostas Iatrou - Air Transport Consultant, Secretary General Hellenic Aviation Society.
Dr George Williams - PhD Research Director, Air Transport Group, Cranfield University.

Oslo, Norway, and Athens, Greece are among the very few cities in Europe that experienced recently the replacement of their major airports. This fact coupled with the relative comparability of the two countries and their traffic has made them a very interesting subject for study. The new Gardermoen airport serving Oslo replaced the heavily constrained Fornebu in October 1998, while the old facility serving Athens, Helliniko, was superseded by the new Eleftherios Venizelos (“Spata”) airport in March 2001. In both cases the new airport facilities are located much further away from the respective city centres than their predecessors. This research has attempted, through the use of an econometric model, to determine whether and to what extent the opening of the new airports has resulted in an increase in traffic.

Within the framework of the study, the domestic and international network of services operated before and after the opening of the two new airports, the impact on traffic growth and mix, airline competition, seat capacity offered and number of destinations served have been assessed in each case.

In both Greece and Norway, which are located on the Southern and Northern edges of Europe respectively, the airports of the capital cities are not major hubs used by connecting passengers, but in most cases the final destination or origin of travelers. Although Norway is not a member of the EU, it belongs to the European Economic Area (EEA) and adheres to all the rules of the fully liberalized EU air transport market. In both countries, on account of their geography and topography, air travel is a major means of transport within the country as demonstrated by the relatively high propensity to travel by air in both countries. Furthermore, the two new airports account for similar volumes of passengers and have substantial amounts of domestic traffic.

Finally, the major carriers of these two countries are not among the largest players in international aviation. Norway’s SAS is the world’s 36th largest carrier in terms of RPKs, while Greece’s Olympic is 95th.