Iceland’s main entry point to the world is preparing to accommodate twice as many. Traffic at Iceland’s Keflavik airport has grown more than five-fold over the past nine years due to tourism boom, predicting the influx of 10 million passengers this year.
An investment of $1 billion over the next 7 to 8 years will be made by the airport to make room for new airlines and routes.
It touts itself as a growing hub between Europe and the U.S. Domestic carriers Icelandair and Wow Air have opened routes to mid-size cities in North America, while Delta, United, American Airlines and Air Canada have or will soon start flying out of Keflavik.
According to Bjorn Oli Hauksson, managing director of ISAVIA, the state-owned company that operates all airports in Iceland said that the airport will pick up the pace of investments after spending about 39 billion kronur ($372 million) since 2011, and will need the help of foreign investors as it takes its biggest steps which might involve issuing bonds.
He further added that when in the next three to four years we will give the signal for the biggest step which will be a new finger for Keflavik.
There’s plenty of room for Keflavik and other operations to grow and its vision of the future includes an “Aerotropolis” that would stretch all the way to Reykjavik, some 30 kilometers away.
The expansion will require a broad slate of investments while there will be many ways to choose from but foreign investors will play a part in the build up in Keflavik.
Hauksson said that the government has been refraining from taking out dividends to allow for investments and has, in that sense, increased its equity each year in a valuable asset.
Keflavik is a key part of Iceland’s tourism boom, which has been instrumental in helping the country resurrect itself after the 2008 economic collapse. After a blistering 7.4 percent in 2016, the central bank expects economic growth have expanded 3.7 percent last year.
