The Lapland border guard expects the pace to pick up towards December, as it is usually the busiest travel month.
The winter season of Lapland’s air traffic has started briskly. According to Lapland’s border guard, it conducted a total of more than 1,870 external border traffic checks during the first week.
Inspections started in Rovaniemi at the end of October. Already in the first two days, more than 700 inspections were carried out. According to the Lapland border guard, there were citizens of 38 different countries. Almost half of them were British and Irish.
According to the Border Guard, seasonal traffic started briskly compared to the previous years 2019–2022, the last two of which have been affected by the corona restrictions.
For the time being, inspections are only carried out at Rovaniemi Airport. In Enontekiö, the season starts on Monday the 21st and in Kittilä and Ivalo on Friday the 25th of the current month.
Lapland’s border guard says that the season will continue to be lively and expects the pace to pick up towards December, which is usually the busiest travel month.
Inspections are carried out as long as flights from outside the Schengen area arrive. According to the Lapland Border Guard, the season has usually continued until March-April, when there is mostly no traffic at Rovaniemi Airport.
External border traffic checks only apply to air traffic coming from outside the Schengen area and they check the travel documents of arriving tourists and the purpose of the trip.
Lapland’s border guard has been responsible for inspections since the early 1990s, when passport inspection tasks were transferred from the police to the Border Guard.
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