OREANDA-NEWS. Last Monday night local time at the World Routes conference, Copenhagen Airport was named the World's best airport at route development among airports with 20 to 50 million passengers annually.

Copenhagen won the award at the World Routes conference in Las Vegas in close battle with Seoul-Incheon International Airport, Kunming Wujiaba International Airport, Munich Airport, Moscow-Sheremetyevo International Airport and Vienna International Airport.

The World Routes conference is an annual venue where 3,000 delegates from airlines, airports and tourism organisations meet to discuss the development of new air routes.

To Copenhagen Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye, the World Routes Marketing award is first and foremost a recognition of many years of focused and trustful collaboration with the airlines on opening routes into and out of Denmark.

“Is is very important to Copenhagen and Denmark that the airlines have rated us the world's best airport in business-to-business marketing. It is a recognition of our close and trustful relations,” said Woldbye.

Strengthening hub status

He also notes that in the motivation for the award, Word Routes mentioned that Copenhagen Airport has successfully generated high growth in point-to-point low-cost airline traffic while also strengthening its hub status so that one in four passengers is in transit, i.e. they fly from the Nordic region, the Baltic States, Poland or northern Germany via Copenhagen to other world destinations.

“It is very important to us at Copenhagen Airport to retain and develop our collaboration with the network airlines, and not least with our strategic partner SAS, while also generating growth in low-cost airline point-to-point traffic. That ensures optimal opportunities for passengers in Denmark to travel on leisure and business trips,” said Woldbye.

A prestigious award

The World Routes Marketing Award is considered one of the most prestigious awards as the votes are cast and the rating is made by airlines. With the award, the airlines have the opportunity to express which airport they feel gives them the best overall marketing package with proper route data, analyses and proposals for new routes as well as development of existing routes.

At the Routes Europe conference in 2011, Copenhagen Airport was rated best at marketing in the Nordic region and the Baltic states. Copenhagen Airport received the 2011 award with Stockholm, Helsinki and Riga as close runners up. But this year, the competition consisted of airports from all over the world. In other words, this was a world championship.

“This shows that the airlines recognise that Copenhagen Airport is a good business partner offering serious and honest marketing when we discuss new routes,” said Woldbye.

The committee behind the awards mentioned specifically in its motivation that Copenhagen Airport has been able to attract a significant amount of traffic from low-cost airlines such as Norwegian, easyJet and Vueling while also developing the airport as a hub for network airlines.