During its heyday before the pandemic, Stockholm Skavsta Airport (NYO) was one of the busiest airports in Sweden, hosting more than 150 departing weekly flights with two low-cost carriers, Ryanair and Wizz Air, primarily driving the airport’s connectivity.
Now, the airport is well behind its 2019 levels, with Ryanair leaving NYO and moving to Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN) in 2021. Wizz Air has remained at the airport, and now, together with other airlines such as Norwegian and SkyUp, NYO is slowly rebuilding its connectivity and traffic.
The Engine Cowl spoke with Brett Weihart, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NYO, about the airport’s current and future affairs, including potential new entrants and markets that are sought after by NYO.
‘A huge amount of potential’ at NYO
Weihart joined NYO in August 2024, more than two years after the airport was acquired by its current owners, Arlandastad Group. According to the executive, he joined NYO because he saw “a huge amount of potential in reestablishing” the airport’s connectivity, and doing things differently this time.
NYO is one of the few privately owned airports in Sweden. The country’s other privately owned airport? Salen Scandinavian Mountains Airport (SCR), which Weihart also helped launch.
(Arlandstad Group owns 90.1% of NYO, while the remaining 10% is owned by the Municipality of Nyköping.)
“It was a low-cost carrier airport, and that is what it had been up until COVID,” Weihart noted. “What we have done with the new owners was to create a different product to what was there before, with a lot wider, broader portfolio of airlines and a different customer experience,” he continued.
Now, it is not a 100% low-cost carrier airport, Weihart said. For one, in its history, NYO had a lot of cargo traffic in the early 2000s, something that the airport aims to once again develop. Compared to Stockholm’s other major airport, ARN, NYO has a few advantages. First, it “does not have a lot of other traffic in the way,” and second, “it has no slots, it is open 24/7.”
(Weihart pointed out that ARN is also open 24/7.)
“[ARN] has never been a big air cargo airport. In Sweden, it actually was Gothenburg Airport [GOT], which was the biggest in terms of main deck cargo uplift.”
Other advantages that NYO can offer to cargo operators are short taxi times from its runways and a lot of experienced cargo handling personnel. “We have quite a few ad-hoc cargo operations at the moment, and [cargo] is what we are working on rebuilding,” Weihart explained.
Together with Alrandastad Group, the airport is also expanding its Western precinct, which will include a cargo-specific stand. In addition, NYO recently signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to develop hydrogen and/or electro Sustainable Aviation Fuel (eSAF) production, battery storage, and a heat recovery system at the airport’s Western precinct.
Weihart detailed that the airport and its owner are trying to “develop two parts of the business model, develop the aeronautical side, and then businesses, which may or may not be directly related to the airport.”
According to the executive, while there will be a close-knit relationship between the planned hydrogen and eSAF production and aviation, NYO does not want to have a “cycle based only on aviation, or aviation-related off-terminal businesses,” as the airport does want to “develop” other ventures that generate revenue.
“We need those two business parts to actually make this a profitable long-term venture.”
In addition to cargo flights, the airport has seen an uptick in, for example, military aircraft since Sweden joined NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. NYO is also home to some of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency’s (Myndigheten för civilt försvar, MSB) aerial firefighting aircraft.
Eyeing services to major European capitals
Coming back to the aeronautical side of NYO’s business, Weihart noted that previously, the airport had up to 61 destinations. “A lot of these destinations, we are looking to regain because they are currently unserved.”
“We are working hard,” Weihart said about talks with potential new entrants and current airlines serving the airport. Some of the destinations the CEO would like to bring to NYO include airports serving London, the United Kingdom, Barcelona El Prat Airport (BCN), Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport (GDN), and Kraków John Paul II International Airport (KRK).
“There is a long list” of sought-after destinations, Weihart stated, continuing that Copenhagen Airport (CPH) and Helsinki Airport (HEL), two major regional hubs for SAS and Finnair, respectively, would also enable NYO’s passengers to transfer on their journeys at those airports.
The CEO reiterated that the airport wants to expand beyond typical low-cost carrier traffic and is looking at destinations that could have plenty of leisure and business travel demand.
“We have quite a number of corporations in the region, on the south side of Stockholm. For them, it is much quicker to fly to/from [NYO] than it is to go to [ARN].”
Currently, the upcoming peak for the airport will begin with the summer 2026 season, with up to 22 weekly departures, set to continue at least until November. For example, in June, Wizz Air will serve four destinations from NYO, while Norwegian will fly three routes. SkyUp will also offer a single itinerary to Chișinău International Airport (RMO), according to Cirium’s Diio Mi.
This does not include charter flights, which are “going to be one of our biggest growth areas in the coming years,” Weihart predicted, noting that due to NYO’s location, the airport can welcome passengers looking to fly on charter flights from the surrounding regions and the big cities, including Stockholm.
Weihart confirmed that the airport’s current terminal capacity is around 3 million passengers per year, but it can go up to 6 million travelers if NYO spaced out the departures. There are no plans at the moment to expand that capacity.
“Our focus at the moment is refurbishing [the terminal] and obviously creating a better customer experience for our current footprint.”
The executive laid out that the current plans are to “redo a couple of the gates, including new furniture, a new toilet block, adding that “we are reopening our lounge, and our fast track should also be reopened next month.”
“We are just trying to get that product back.”
Stockholm, but also not Stockholm
NYO is one of the infamous airports throughout Europe that are named after a city, yet are quite far away from their centers, with Weihart noting that passengers can get on a bus in Central Stockholm, and around 75 minutes later, they get to the terminal.
However, NYO should not be seen as a Stockholm-only airport.
“50% of our customer base is from the greater Stockholm city, and the other 50% come from regional cities within Sweden, mostly to the south and to the west of the airport.”
Weihart highlighted that if you were to look at a 200-kilometer catchment area, NYO “actually has a bigger catchment area in passenger numbers than [ARN],” which is just over 4 million. Or, almost half of Sweden’s population, according to the chief executive.
“We know from previous [surveys] that passengers came from 500, 600 kilometers [310, 372 miles] away. It is not uncommon for that to happen.”
Still, NYO has a lot of passengers who come into the airport from central Stockholm. Following customer surveys, the airport was able to conclude that despite its distance from the Swedish capital, its location is not really an issue. Following the aforementioned 75-minute bus ride, guests need only a handful of minutes to get into the airside at NYO.
“Within a couple of minutes, they are at the gates, sitting down, and having a glass of wine or whatever they choose to do.”
Weihart admitted that for airlines that have never been in Sweden or Stockholm, it might be difficult to explain that the distance is not as much of a disadvantage, noting that the “time difference” for passengers to travel to the airport and clear security is not that “great at the end of the day” when comparing Stockholm’s two airports.
(Stockholm has another airport, Bromma (BMA), which has strict noise and annual flight movement limits.)
Relief for NYO’s connectivity with Stockholm will come with the establishment of the East Link railway line. “I do not like saying the word gamechanger, but in this case, it will be a gamechanger because it will” result in 40-minute train rides to the center of the city, Weihart admitted.
The line should open in 2032, with the airport planning a train station that will facilitate passengers’ journeys so that they do not even need to bring a jacket to get to their gates, the CEO pointed out.
All in all, NYO knows it has “a very big audience,” and that “we need to increase our destination portfolio again.”
“To make sure that everyone is aware that [NYO] is here and we are ready for business to keep generating new experiences for our customers.”
Growing traffic at NYO
Weihart was grounded while outlining the airport’s medium-term goals, affirming that while NYO’s ambitions are to rebuild its network in terms of scale, “we are looking for a broad portfolio” of airlines.
The airport will not go back to the frequency levels of 2019 this year, “by any stretch of imagination, but I hope as we get up to 2028, 2029, we are pushing back towards 1 million guests per year,” Weihart said.
“It is always an interesting business, aviation, because once you generate that first sort of business again, you generally see quite a rapid increase in income.”
Weihart added that the airport is open to the idea that airline partners would base their aircraft at NYO, something that has “a huge” effect on an airport. NYO also has an incentive program, offered to both new and current airlines, “because we are very keen for the current customers to grow,” but the airport also wants to add new destinations to its route map, the CEO stated.
Attracting new entrants will be helped by the fact that Weihart has “worked with a lot of airlines over the last 20 years in different roles.”
“I have sort of got a good grip on things.”
Throughout our conversation, Weihart reiterated that the airport’s current focus is to rebuild its route network.
That is the biggest challenge he sees for NYO: developing that destination portfolio again. Currently, the challenge is only harder because of the industry-wide capacity constraints, whether it be new aircraft delivery delays, or aircraft groundings due to the accelerated removals and inspections of the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engines, powering the Airbus A320neo aircraft family.
“There are not a lot of airlines out there with a lot of capacity sitting around doing nothing. For them, it is always an investment decision, and whether they choose to open a new destination or add frequency, or whatever it may be.”
Still, Weihart is confident that within two to three years, NYO will have a much expanded portfolio of airlines and routes, propelling the airport into another era of success.
