I’m sad to report that the closing of Malmi Airport is now real:
Dear Aviators,
I am sad to tell, that Helsinki City is forcing Helsinki Malmi Airport to suspend its flight operations.
Helsinki has been trying to end flying at Helsinki-Malmi since 1980’s. When city tried to end the airport in 2002 city plan, an association “Friends of Malmi Airport” was established and after several years of fighting, this city plan was cancelled by court order in 2006. Finavia left Helsinki-Malmi in 2016 but a new association, Helsinki Airfield association took over the operations. They have successfully led an uncontrolled airfield of 40 000 yearly operations since the beginning of 2017. In contrast to city officials opinion, 65% of Helsinki citizens want to retain the airport in aviation use and 29% wants to use it for housing (TNS Gallup 11/2020). This has been the situation for the last decades.
Helsinki city wants to use the area for housing purposes and gave a notice of the runway land lease agreement in the end of 2018. Airport association took the issue to the district court, and it is still open, going to court of appeal. Despite of that, the eviction order of verdict of district court has been given an execution permission so, that the runway will be closed in the evening of Sunday, 14th of March 2021.
When the State of Finland decided to pull their own functions out of Malmi (border guard, Patria aviation) in 2014, there were about 250 permanently located aircraft at Malmi. During latest years, the number has been between 100 and 120. During last days, many have left, but there are still 30-40 aircraft (planes, helicopters) at Malmi with no place to go. Commercial flight schools (Aeropole, BF Lento) have flown their planes to park them to several airfields in Southern Finland and Denmark. The main Finnish helicopter maintenance company Helitech has 6-8 helicopters in yearly maintenance at Malmi, hopefully they will get a permission to fly out later this year. Nearest airfields EFNU and EFHV are basically full with no fuel service. Nearest public aviation fuel service places are at Turku (EFTU) Räyskälä (EFRY), Lahti-Vesivehmaa (EFLA) and later this year Pyhtää (EFPR). Helsinki-Vantaa is the only real option to come to capital area, but please be aware that you can only get JET A1 from EFHK. This will be the biggest threat to continuation of Finnish general aviation this far.
There have been 100-200 ops/day at Malmi during latest weeks. Students have been trying to get their training finalized. Operations will be normal during this Saturday and Sunday, but after that, nobody knows. Airfied status will remain until the final court verdict on land lease agreement.
Malmi is still also an official border crossing place but with no open runways, this status is obsolete. General aviation in Finland is facing extreme threat and we as the Aeronautical Association are doing our best to assure continuity of flight operations also in Helsinki area. Finnish parliament made an unanimous decision, that the government has to provide GA with an option before Malmi closes. Government has not fulfilled requirements of this decision and the minister of traffic and communications has not given real response to our meeting suggestions.
I do own an RV-6 myself, and I am planning to fly it for interim storage at Helsinki-Vantaa EFHK. Finavia is extremely hesitant on having GA planes there, but we have been lucky to find (very expensive) interim hangars for next months with one other plane at Malmi.
Please do share this information to your aviation community. Finland is a great place to fly with lots of uncontrolled airspace and ~80 airfields, of which majority is free of landing fees. Unfortunately, it seems probable that there will be no access to Helsinki area with small planes in the future.
I am glad to give further information and interviews if your media would be interested to hear more. There will be several news of this issue in Finnish media during the weekend.
Finnish Broadcasting Company article: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11834260
Timo
Timo Hyvönen
Puheenjohtaja, Suomen Ilmailuliitto ry – Chairman, Finnish Aeronautical Association
[email protected]