This Tuesday, Gran Canaria Tourism presents a professional event aimed at analyzing the key factors, strategies, and opportunities offered by the Nordic and Baltic markets, markets of strategic importance for the island. This event is open to industry professionals, where the organization's technical staff will analyze the current situation and developments in these markets to strengthen the destination's competitiveness and open up new business opportunities.
From the headquarters of the major operators, the gaze is fixed on the south of Gran Canaria. The sky. The planes. The Nordic ones. The Baltic ones. The numbers are the only truth. Gran Canaria Airport is the bottleneck, the only destination for all these flights. Air connectivity is the lifeblood of the island. The winter of 2024-2025 saw air seats from the North to Gran Canaria rise by 15%. A bet by the operators, TUI among them. They believed. But growth isn't forever. The Excelcan lights are already flickering: stagnation in 2025, perhaps a slight decline in 2026. The soft blow. The furious growth, that of recovery, is gone.
The airlines are the soldiers. TUI Airlines Nordic is a mainstay, with its Boeing 737s and Airbus A321s, carrying between 180 and 220 souls from Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Malmö, Umeå, and Kirunas. Several flights a week. This is expected to remain the same, or to decrease slightly if people don't spend. Norwegian Air Sweden, with its 737NGs, carrying around 180 passengers, flies seasonally, one to three times a week from Stockholm, Oslo, and Gothenburg. It could stabilize by 2025. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), with its A321s and A320s, carrying around 200 passengers, offers two to four weekly flights from Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Kristiansand, and Kristiansund. It will maintain its service, but could adjust its strength.
From the Baltics, AirBaltic has been fast. Its A220-371s carry about 145 passengers. It has a base here. From Tallinn, one flight a week. And new: to Molde, Norway, from October 2025, one flight every seven days. Controlled growth. Sunclass Airlines and Jet Time A/S, with their A320s, A330s, and 737s, carrying 180 to 300 passengers, bring people from Helsinki, Kuopio, Oulu, Tampere, Vaasa, and other points in Sweden and Norway. One or two flights a week. They will continue, but less profitable routes could be dropped.
There are many airports of origin. From Sweden: Stockholm-Arlanda, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Malmö, Norrköping, Örebro, Umeå. From Denmark: Copenhagen. From Norway: Oslo-Gardermoen, Kristiansand, Kristiansund, Molde (new route in Oct 2025), Bodo, Haugesund, Narvik, Stavanger, Sandefjord-Torp. From Finland: Helsinki-Vantaa, Kuopio, Oulu, Tampere, Turku, Vaasa. Iceland does not have live shows. From the Baltics: only Tallinn, in Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania, without confirmed routes.
Tour operators are the ones pulling the strings. TUI rules. But Ving, Apollo, Solresor, and Kuoni are fighting for every customer, every room in the south. Their countries' economies are the wind that fills or deflates their sails. In Finland, which serves as a mirror for the other Nordic and Baltic countries, real GDP was negative in 2024 (-0.1%), but is expected to grow, from +0.7% to +1.0% in 2025, and from +1.1% to +1.5% in 2026. Inflation remains low: 1.0% to 1.7% in 2024, rising slightly to 1.7% to 1.9% in 2025, before calming down. Unemployment is high, from 8.4% to 9.5% in 2024, and will remain that way in 2025. This affects morale. Disposable income is rising, real wages are recovering. Good. Exchange rates are stable: one euro equals 11 Swedish and Norwegian kroner, 7.5 Danish kroner, and 11.5 Icelandic kroner. This is good because travel isn't more expensive.
Even so, travel and leisure spending in Finland showed a +10% growth in foreign tourism spending in 2024, although domestic tourism was weak. Consumers are cautious. High unemployment limits the comfort of their wallets. Tourist demand will stabilize or decline slightly in 2025-2026. Every flight, every seat, must be profitable. The strategy from Gran Canaria is clear: maintain those direct connections from the many Nordic airports. Southern Gran Canaria is a magnet, but the game is delicate. Money is limited. The battle for every euro is fought in the skies, and it is won with precision.
