# Helsinki Vantaa Airport (HEL)

> Helsinki (Vantaa), FI · IATA: HEL · ICAO: EFHK · Large Airport · Cargo Hub

## Quick Facts

| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| IATA | `HEL` |
| ICAO | `EFHK` |
| City | Helsinki (Vantaa) |
| Country | FI |
| Type | Large Airport |
| Elevation | 55 m |
| Cargo | ✅ |
| Cargo Rank | #1 |
| GPS | 60.31836, 24.96334 |

## Description

No European Union hub lies closer to Tokyo on the great circle than Helsinki-Vantaa (IATA: HEL, ICAO: EFHK) — a geographic fact on which Finnair built decades of Asia traffic, and which Russia's airspace closure of 2022 turned into a handicap overnight. Detours of several hours now stretch every East Asia rotation, pushing the airline to rebalance its long-haul network towards North America, India and the Middle East. Cargo nevertheless remains central: the airport handled 184,004 tonnes in 2025 (up 0.9 percent), most of it in the bellies of Finnair's A350 fleet, with Finnair Cargo itself carrying close to 139,000 tonnes. The heart of the operation is the COOL Nordic Cargo Hub, opened in 2018 — around 35,000 square metres of temperature-zoned handling space designed for up to 350,000 tonnes, one of Europe's most advanced facilities for pharmaceuticals and perishables. Nordic seafood, pharma and time-critical industrial parts dominate the mix. On the passenger side the airport handled close to 17 million travellers in a recent year, almost 90 percent of them international. Surface links run via the Kehä III ring motorway onto the E18, and since 2015 the Ring Rail Line has connected the terminal to central Helsinki, some 17 kilometres south, in about half an hour. For Baltic destinations, forwarders frequently combine HEL airfreight with trucking via the Tallinn ferry — a routing worth knowing.

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*Freight Academy — Airport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/helsinki-vantaa-airport-hel](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/helsinki-vantaa-airport-hel)*

*Markdown mirror: [https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/helsinki-vantaa-airport-hel](https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/helsinki-vantaa-airport-hel)*

*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/airports/helsinki-vantaa-airport-hel/llm-summary*