Helsinki-Malmi Airport - Present and Future

Present and Future

Nowadays Malmi Airport is in general aviation use. Professional flying education and professional aviation as well as private aviation and aviation clubs operate there. 75 to 80 percent of all flights are training flights, and in 2002, 50 percent of all pilots in Finland and two out of three professional pilots were trained there. The Finnish Border Guard is an important user of the Airport. In special circumstances, Malmi Airport also acts as a backup airfield for Helsinki-Vantaa for lighter passenger aircraft.

Malmi Airport is also popular among people who like outdoor exercise because its environment offers natural scenery and a nature path encircles the airport area. The aviation shows and other public events taking place at the Airport draw tens of thousands of spectators every year. The exceptionally well preserved pre-WWII aviation milieu of Malmi Airport has also received international recognition. It has been selected to the worldwide List of 100 Most Endangered Cultural Sites 2004 by the World Monuments Fund, and re-selected to the 2006 list. The Airport is also included in the Finnish selection of the international DoCoMoMo Workgroup dedicated to cataloguing and preserving buildings, monuments and sites of the modern movement.

The future of Malmi Airport is uncertain, as the City of Helsinki has plans for housing construction on the site. The City's activity in the matter, which increased substantially in the late 1990s, has since diminished with the ongoing big area building projects and the large land annexation from Sipoo's Östersundom in 2009. The State of Finland has a legally valid land cession agreement with the City of Helsinki until 2034.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications ordered in June 2005 from the Civil Aviation Administration a new assessment of the alternatives and costs. In February 2008, the Ministry of Transport and Communications commissioned an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the alternative sites. In preparing the EIA, it turned out to be problematic that neither the Ministry nor any other party had a concrete project to build a new airport. The Ministry made in early 2010 a proposal to relevant planning authorities to organise co-operation in carrying out the EIA. Based on the response, the Ministry concluded that the preparation of the EIA will not be continued without participation of the authorities responsible for land-use planning. The question of the future location of the airport will be studied in future regional land use plans. It is likely that Malmi Airport will remain operational at least until the 2020s.