Chinese passengers at Helsinki Airport grow by 50 pct in 2015

Chinese visitors arriving at Helsinki Airport grew by 50 percent last year compared with the previous year, Finland's state-owned civil aviation company Finavia said on Friday.

About 300,000 Chinese passengers visited Helsinki Airport in 2015. The number surpassed the amount of Russian passengers for the first time. More than half of the Chinese passengers were first-time visitors.

As a result of Russian economic downturn and the ruble devaluation, the number of Russian travelers dropped from 400,000 in 2014 to 280,000 in 2015.

Finavia said Helsinki Airport had a total of 16.4 million passengers in 2015, of which 3.6 percent were Chinese. Chinese passengers were now the fourth biggest foreign group at the airport, following Swedes, Germans and Brits.

In April, Finavia reported that travelers from China were the biggest spenders, who spent a total of 16.6 million euros ($18.77 million) at Helsinki Airport in 2015, followed by Russians and Koreans.

Helsinki Airport is the main international airport of Finland. Measured by the amount of connections to Asia, the airport is the fifth biggest one in Europe.

There are currently 17 Finnair flights directly to Asia. Among the Asian destinations, six are in China, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Xi'an and Guangzhou.