Late on Wednesday, the Australian capital fund Macquarie, which owns 26.9 percent of the shares in Copenhagen Airport, announced it had sold the entire holding to Denmark’s ATP pension fund, reports TV2 Nyheder.

ATP paid around 10 billion kroner for the shares and it is the largest purchase ever made by the fund.

More routes could open up
For some time now, politicians have been urging the airport to lower its tariffs to enable cheaper ticket prices for passengers and allow new routes to be established.

With ATP on board this might now be possible, as the Danish state owns 39 percent of the shares, so that would add up to 65.9 percent combined.

Macquarie has more than doubled its investment since it bought shares back in 2005, but has wanted to sell since the Danish state began urging lower tariffs.

“It means a lot when companies are deciding where to have their headquarters. Is it accessible? Are there good flight connections?” commented the business minister, Brian Mikkelsen, in July.

“That’s why we would like to see the tariffs reduced in order to get more connections so that it will cheaper to fly: both for ordinary people and business.”

Pilot’s strike off but flights cancelled
In related news, the planned strike by SAS pilots, which was due to start from September 11, was cancelled after the Norwegian pilots’ association Parat and Norsk Flygerforbund reached an agreement with the SAS management, reports the Norwegian news bureau NTB.

However, despite this, around 100 flight have had to be cancelled up until 14:00 today.