by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 9:23 AM ET, Wed January 17, 2018
About 10 million passengers are expected to pass through Iceland's Keflavik airport this year, a figure that represents a more than five-fold increase over the past nine years.
During 2017 alone, the airport's passenger numbers rose 28 percent, to 8.76 million, according to Reuters.
To help accommodate the growth, the airport will invest as much as $1 billion in various improvements and expansions. The money will be spent over the coming seven to eight years on a variety of projects including creating space for new airlines and routes, Bloomberg reported.
The country's domestic carriers, Icelandair and Wow Air, have already opened routes to some of North America's mid-size cities. In addition, Delta, United, American Airlines and Air Canada all have plans to start flying from Keflavik or have already begun doing so.
Seen as a hub for travelers from Europe en route to North America, the airport has been an integral part of the country's recent tourism boom. Though the record growth in visitors has posed some challenges tied to the environment and infrastructure, it has also been key to the country's recovery from the 2008 economic collapse.
In addition to strengthening its role in the tourism sector via the planned expansion, Keflavik is also seeking to make a name for itself as a cargo hub. Airport officials told Bloomberg they would also like to tap foreign investors to help pay for a "new finger."
"It is simply a question of when in the next three to four years we will give the signal for the biggest step which will be a new finger for Keflavik," Bjorn Oli Hauksson, managing director of ISAVIA, the state-owned company that operates all airports in Iceland, told Bloomberg.
Keflavik has expanded numerous times since being constructed in 1987, according to the Iceland Monitor. The facility is now three times bigger than when first built.
In the beginning, just two airlines offered flights to and from Keflavik. Now there are 26.
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