The huge rise in passengers coming through Oulu has been met with much stricter parking regulations at the airport.

In 2011, 973,000 passengers passed through Oulu’s airport, almost 40 percent more than in 2010. This increase, to almost a million passengers a year, has been put down to the rise of budget airlines using the airport.

According to Oulu airport’s director, Pekka Mäntynen, much of the growth can be put down to budget airline Blue1 offering flights between Helsinki and Oulu. This alone explains 44 percent of the growth and has led to people switching from train to aeroplane. There are also Air Baltic, Flybe and Norwegian flights from Oulu airport. The numbers may even exceed a million this year as Blue1 begins to offer flights to Stockholm and Copenhagen.

However, the increase in passenger numbers has led to sweeping changes at Oulu’s airport, not all of which are necessarily good for friends and family picking people up from the airport.

The expanded terminal was opened last year. Until it was opened, those picking up passengers would find that almost as soon as the plane touched down, they were waiting for their luggage, visible through a glass wall. Now the luggage area is much further away from arrivals and the process of arriving takes much longer.

In addition, whereas it was once possible to wait for free in the carpark, there are now traffic wardens who force you to move on after a few minutes, if you are waiting close to the terminal, or 20 minutes if you’re at a waiting area further from it. Accordingly, there is far stronger pressure to purchase a parking ticket.

However, Pertti Savisalo, Regional Director for Western Finland, insists that the new policy is the only way to ensure sufficient parking spaces. ‘For customers, all this means improved service, wider selections at the restaurants, cafeterias and shops, as well as sufficient parking resources, traffic connections and generally fluent and safe operations,’ he said, in a Finavia press release.