Many regional airports are pursuing cargo growth. What gives Tampere-Pirkkala Airport a distinctive role in Northern Europe’s logistics landscape?
Tampere-Pirkkala Airport’s distinctive role lies in the combination of industrial proximity, inland accessibility and the potential to serve specialised, time-critical logistics.
The surrounding Tampere region is one of Finland’s leading centres for advanced manufacturing, automation, engineering, defence-related technologies and industrial research.
Many of these sectors depend on reliable access to components, spare parts and other high-value goods for which delivery time can matter more than volume.
There are clear indications of underlying logistics demand in the region, although these flows are currently fragmented and largely served through other gateways.
At present, air cargo originating in the Tampere region is generally trucked approximately 180km to Helsinki Airport before entering international air cargo networks. For urgent shipments, this can mean additional road transport, longer lead times and less flexibility.
Our intention is to build the practical readiness for some of these flows to be handled directly from the region whenever there is a genuine operational and commercial case.
The airport is also well positioned to serve the industrial companies of inland and western Finland, with strong road connections and an operating environment shared by civil aviation, defence and other critical functions.
We are not trying to compete with Europe’s major hubs on tonnage. The role we see for Tampere-Pirkkala is much more specific: to serve time-critical and high-value shipments when proximity, fast response and a direct connection to the industries of inland Finland make a real difference.
Has the definition of a successful regional cargo airport changed over the past decade?
Yes, considerably. In the past, success was measured mainly in tonnes handled, the number of scheduled freighter services or the size of warehouse infrastructure. Those indicators still matter, but they no longer tell the whole story.
Today, a regional cargo airport can create significant economic and strategic value even with relatively modest volumes. Success may mean preventing a production shutdown by delivering a critical component, supporting urgent medical or authority-related transport, providing an alternative route during a disruption, or enabling a regional company to reach an international supply chain more quickly.
In other words, the relevant question is no longer only how much cargo the airport handled, but what problem the airport helped solve for the regional economy or the wider supply chain.
The ability to respond, coordinate and integrate different modes of transport has become increasingly important. Digital visibility, security, handling reliability and cooperation between companies and authorities are now central to the airport’s role.
For regional airports, specialisation is usually more realistic than scale. The most successful ones understand the specific needs of their region and build services around them, rather than trying to become smaller versions of major international hubs.
Which sectors are creating the greatest opportunities for time-critical air freight in the Tampere region?
The clearest opportunities are linked to the region’s industrial and technological strengths. I would highlight three broad areas in particular.
The first is advanced manufacturing, machinery, automation, electronics and industrial maintenance. These sectors often rely on specialised components and spare parts that may be small in size but extremely valuable if their absence threatens to interrupt production.
The second is defence, security and dual-use industries, where logistics requirements are built around reliability, traceability, security and the ability to respond quickly to changing circumstances.
The third potential area is medical, laboratory and technical maintenance logistics. This includes medical technology, laboratory equipment, urgent healthcare deliveries and maintenance, repair and overhaul support for aviation and other technical industries.
For us, the opportunity is therefore not mainly in large volumes. A shipment weighing only a few kilograms can be extremely important if it keeps a production line, hospital or critical system running.
The question is whether we can create the local readiness to handle these shipments reliably when they are needed.
How can regional airports strengthen supply chain resilience without trying to replicate the role of major international hubs?
Regional airports should complement the major hubs rather than compete directly with them. Their role can be to provide alternative access points, specialised handling capabilities and additional flexibility when established supply chains are under pressure.
Resilience does not require every airport to offer every service. It requires different airports to understand what they can deliver reliably within the wider network.
A regional airport can be particularly valuable for urgent charter operations, critical spare parts, high-value industrial shipments or situations in which direct access to the destination region is essential.
Regional airports can also reduce dependence on a single gateway. If cargo can enter or leave a country through several capable locations, the overall system becomes less vulnerable to congestion, labour disputes, infrastructure failures or geopolitical disruption.
What we are aiming to develop is a shared, multi-user operating environment: common basic capabilities and processes that are not tied to a single operator but can be used by different companies and public-sector users when there is a justified operational need.
Strong road connections and proximity to customers are a major advantage here, because the relevant measure is not only airport-to-airport transit time, but the entire journey from shipper to final user.
In some cases, a regional airport can provide a faster and more reliable end-to-end solution than a larger but more distant hub.
"A regional airport can be particularly valuable for urgent charter operations, critical spare parts, high-value industrial shipments or situations in which direct access to the destination region is essential"
What infrastructure and digital capabilities will define the next generation of regional logistics platforms?
For us, the first priority is practical operational readiness. The airport needs secure and adaptable handling areas, reliable ground handling equipment, suitable storage and inspection capabilities, controlled access and smooth connections between airside and landside operations.
In Tampere, year-round reliability cannot be treated as a detail. New operators need to know that ground handling and winter operations work every day, not only in ideal conditions.
At the same time, infrastructure should be modular so that we can start at a realistic level and expand only when demand grows.
The digital side is about making the whole transport chain visible and easier to coordinate. Airports, airlines, freight forwarders, customs and road transport companies need to share information on shipments, capacity, handling and onward transport.
This is particularly important for sensitive or high-value cargo, where traceability and reliable data are part of the service.
A regional logistics platform succeeds when the physical infrastructure and the information around the shipment work together. A warehouse alone does not create a cargo operation.
Dual-use capabilities are receiving increasing attention across Europe. How does this influence long-term airport planning?
Dual-use thinking encourages airports and public authorities to look beyond one narrow operational purpose when planning long-term investments.
The core idea is simple: the same infrastructure should support normal commercial activity every day while also strengthening resilience and security of supply when circumstances require it.
At Tampere-Pirkkala, dual-use is not a new role added to a purely civilian airport. Civil and military aviation already operate in the same airport environment.
In long-term planning, the question is how investments can support commercial activity while also improving operational continuity, security of supply and preparedness.
Secure access, dependable ground handling, resilient communications and energy systems, and suitable cargo handling areas can serve everyday customers while also improving overall preparedness.
Because airport infrastructure has a long lifetime, planning it with more than one operational situation in mind is simply sound long-term thinking. It also calls for closer cooperation between airport operators, municipalities, companies, public authorities and other relevant stakeholders.
For us, the long-term aim is to build an operating environment that supports commercial logistics in normal conditions and helps keep critical supplies moving when circumstances change.
What partnerships are most critical to building a successful regional cargo ecosystem?
A successful cargo ecosystem cannot be built by an airport or a single organisation alone. The most important partnership is not one individual relationship, but the alignment between industrial demand, operators, forwarders, ground handling, airport infrastructure and public-sector enabling conditions.
The starting point is always the industrial customer, because any service has to be based on real and sufficiently recurring needs rather than assumptions.
Around those needs, a workable chain may combine suitable scheduled passenger capacity, charter or express solutions, freight consolidation, reliable ground handling and forwarders that connect the airport to national and international networks.
When these roles are present and coordinated, even modest volumes can be served dependably. The airport operator is essential for ensuring that infrastructure, safety and handling processes support cargo activity, while public authorities and the municipality play their part in enabling the wider operating environment.
One partnership that is easy to underestimate is cooperation with education and training providers. Across the aviation and logistics industries, the real bottleneck is increasingly the availability of skilled technical, operational and ground handling personnel, not simply aircraft capacity. Building that competence with local training institutions is one of the practical foundations of a durable regional cargo ecosystem.
Ultimately, the most successful model is one in which every participant sees a clear benefit. The public side can help create the enabling conditions, but commercial operators and customers generate the actual activity.
Trust and information-sharing matter especially here because regional cargo flows are fragmented and no single organisation has a complete view of the market.
"Across the aviation and logistics industries, the real bottleneck is increasingly the availability of skilled technical, operational and ground handling personnel, not simply aircraft capacity"
What challenges still limit the growth potential of regional airports in the global cargo market?
One of the main challenges is the fragmentation of demand. Many regional companies have occasional urgent shipments, but combining these into sufficient and predictable volumes for regular services is difficult.
The challenge is not only whether demand exists, but whether it can be identified, consolidated and served in a way that makes commercial sense.
This creates a familiar chicken-and-egg problem. Operators want evidence of demand before committing aircraft or services, while companies may not consider air freight through a regional airport until reliable services already exist.
Cost is another major factor. Air freight is expensive, and regional operations can involve smaller volumes and less efficient aircraft utilisation than established hubs.
Practical operational readiness matters just as much. The availability of suitable operators, skilled ground handling personnel and dependable year-round capability can all limit development. In a northern environment, reliable winter operations are a genuine precondition rather than a minor operational detail.
Regulation, security requirements, customs processes and infrastructure costs create further barriers. These requirements are necessary, but they can weigh proportionally more heavily on smaller operations.
Regional airports also compete with the extensive networks and consolidation benefits of major hubs. Their opportunity therefore lies in services where proximity, speed, flexibility or resilience outweigh the advantages of scale.
Growth requires realistic expectations. Not every region can support regular freighter services, but many can develop valuable capabilities for charter operations, urgent shipments and specialised logistics.
Which future logistics trends do you think the industry isn’t paying enough attention to?
I think the industry still pays too much attention to total volume and too little attention to the strategic value of smaller, time-critical flows. A small shipment can be far more important than its weight suggests if it prevents a production shutdown or supports a critical public service.
I also think we need to pay more attention to distributed logistics resilience. Supply chains have been optimised around a limited number of large hubs, but recent disruptions have shown why alternative gateways closer to industrial customers matter.
Commercial, authority and security-related logistics are still often discussed as separate systems. In reality, the same infrastructure, processes and skills can support several types of operation. This is what dual-use means in practice.
I would also highlight digital coordination between air freight and surface transport. Future competitive advantage may not come from the aircraft itself, but from how quickly and transparently a shipment moves through the whole chain.
In the longer term, unmanned aviation and new aircraft and energy technologies may open up new regional logistics models. They will not replace existing networks in the near future, but they may gradually make new types of regional connections operationally and commercially possible.
"Supply chains have been optimised around a limited number of large hubs, but recent disruptions have shown why alternative gateways closer to industrial customers matter"
Looking ahead, what role do you hope Tampere-Pirkkala Airport will play in the European air cargo network over the next five to 10 years?
Over the next five to 10 years, I would like Tampere-Pirkkala Airport to become a recognised regional gateway for time-critical, high-value and strategically important logistics.
The aim is not to become a major hub measured by tonnage. A more realistic and valuable role is to provide dependable capabilities for the industries of inland Finland, support urgent and specialised transport needs, and offer an additional point of access to the European logistics network.
I hope we can develop the infrastructure, partnerships and operating models needed to support cargo charter operations, critical spare-parts logistics and selected recurring cargo solutions wherever there is a genuine commercial case.
I would also like us to use Tampere-Pirkkala Airport as a development and demonstration environment for new logistics solutions. This could include digital cargo processes, dual-use operating models, unmanned aviation and future low-emission aircraft technologies.
If companies and public organisations know that they can turn to Tampere-Pirkkala Airport when reliability, proximity and speed are more important than scale, then we will have created a meaningful role for the airport in the European cargo network.
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