Tampere–Pirkkala Airport

Tampere–Pirkkala Airport (Tampere-Pirkkalan lentoasema, Tammerfors-Birkala flygplats), or simply Tampere Airport, is located in Pirkkala, Finland, 7 NM south-west of Tampere city centre. The airport is the sixth-busiest airport in Finland, as measured by the total number of passengers (168,328 in 2022), and the third-busiest as measured by the number of international passengers (159,801 in 2022).

The airport is also home to the Satakunta Air Command base of the Finnish Air Force. F-18 Hornets were stationed at Tampere-Pirkkala airport until the middle of 2014 when the 21st flight of the Satakunta Air command was dissolved.

History
Tampere Airport was founded in 1936 in Härmälä neighbourhood, located 6 km from the centre of Tampere. At that time the airport was connected to Helsinki, Vaasa, Oulu and Kemi by Aero O/Y (now Finnair). The first terminal building was built in 1941. Karhumäki Airways began to fly to Stockholm in the 1950s. The runway was paved in 1958. Between 1936 and 1979 Härmälä airport served 1.5 million passengers. In 1979, Härmälä airport was closed and the new Tampere–Pirkkala Airport was opened.

The current terminal 1 building was completed in 1996. Ryanair started flights to Tampere–Pirkkala in April 2003. Its first destinations were Stockholm-Skavsta, London-Stansted, Frankfurt-Hahn and Riga. This made the airport one of Finland's fastest-growing airports and increased its annual passenger numbers from 256,380 to 709,356 between 2000 and 2008. In 2011, Ryanair had 13 destinations from Tampere–Pirkkala. Wizz Air flew to Gdańsk during summers 2010 and 2011. airBaltic resumed flights to Riga in March 2017.

The low-cost airline terminal 2 was renovated in 2014–2015. However, in April 2015, Ryanair announced that it would cancel all the routes from Tampere for the winter season 2015–16 due to a plane shortage. Then, only routes to Bremen and Budapest resumed in spring 2016. in late 2023, Ryanair terminated the route to London-Stansted, ending 20 years of service.

On 14 December 2021, AirBaltic announced that its first secondary hub outside of the Baltic countries would be established in Tampere Airport in May 2022. In March 2023, Finnair announced it would end flights between Tampere and Helsinki Airport and replace them with bus service due to low demand and the short distance.

Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Tampere–Pirkkala Airport:

Ground transportation


The airport is connected to the city centre of Tampere (25 minutes) by bus route 103, which runs a few times a day just after planes land. The bus fare for a single ticket to Tampere is €5.50 (zones A+B+C). One can change to any other bus, tram or commuter train going anywhere within Tampere and parts of neighbouring municipalities within 90 minutes from the purchase of the ticket.

There are long-distance connections to Helsinki and other cities via the Tampere Bus Station. The timetables and fares can be found at the Matkahuolto web site.

Bus route 34 goes to central Pirkkala once an hour during rush hours. One can transfer to a few local buses that go to other parts of Pirkkala or Nokia, avoiding zone A completely.

A taxi service is also available in front of Terminal 1.