Dear passenger

You are sitting comfortably in front of a fire place, the log walls around you glow with a friendly warmth, and the atmosphere is peaceful, unhurried. Stepping outside, you can admire Laplands beautiful summer, the colours of autumn or a wintry wonderland. You're at the most northerly airport in Finland, situated on the edge of the Hammastunturi wilderness.

Ivalo airport caters for about 120,000 passengers a year, most of them tourists. For some, Ivalo is a halting-piace on the way to Nordkapp about 450 km to the north, but for most arrivals, Ivalo and its surrounding landscape is the place to be. Here, after all, is where you stop for the Saariselkä recreation centre, a popular resort for skiing, hiking and generally having a good time. Here too, is Tankavaara, where you can go gold panning; and Lake Inari, sparkling in the wilderness, among the fells and sheer-sided canyons.

If you want, you can take off for a snowmobile safari, a hiking trip or a fishing or hunting expedition straight from the airport!

The airport passenger terminal was expanded in 1999 to provide extra space for both arriving and departing passengers. Thanks to our new conveyor system, baggage-handling is now more efficient. Shopping is available at the airport's two gift shops. The restaurant in the departure hall offers light meals and coffee for you to enjoy by the crackling fire in the grate.

At Christmas time, works of luminous art, sculpted of snow, ice and candles, are set up outside the airport building to greet the charter planes arriving from abroad. In the arrival hall, visitors are met by "Lapland Fantasy", a work of art by Tapani Rantala, and 'Magic Drums' by artist Kari E. Holma. They are there to make all visitors to Ivalo airport, to Lapland and to the culture of the Lappish Saame peopie, feel weicome - at any time of the year!

Airport director
Matti Sorvari

The gold-panners' airport

Finnair, then called Aero, had ideas for using Ivalo as a stop-over for its "Lapland Express" route in the 1930s, but the outbreak of the Second World War changed those plans. The airport was eventually built by German troops in 1943. The following year, however, they destroyed the airfield as they withdrew from Lapland.

Post-war reconstruction and the rush to dig the newly discovered gold in Lapland provided the impetus for repairing the airfield. In 1949 the Lapin Lentokuljetus company began to operate supply flights from Ivalo to the gold diggers, and some time later regular taxiflights between Ivalo and Rovaniemi started.

In 1955, Aero began services to Rovaniemi once a day. In the 1970s the first jet planes arrived at Ivalo and regular, year-round traffic began.

The present cosy passenger terminal, built of logs and brick, came into service in 1999. It has the capacity for handling 150,000 passengers a year.

Passenger terminal is open Mon-Fri 7-16, at night and during weekends according to flight schedules

There is more about the services at Ivalo airport at Finnish civil aviation administration pages