Arlanda Express

Arlanda Express is an airport rail link connecting Stockholm Central Station with the Stockholm Arlanda Airport, located outside Stockholm, Sweden. Operated by A-Train AB, the trip takes 18 minutes and runs three to six times per hour using seven X3 electric multiple units. The services operate over the East Coast and Arlanda Lines calling at Stockholm Central, Arlanda North and Arlanda South stations. The service was used by 2.7 million passengers in 2007 and by 3.3 million passengers in 2012, after a decrease in passenger numbers due to COVID-19, the service has returned to 3.4 million passengers in 2023. Planning of the airport link started in the 1980s. In 1993 the Government of Sweden issued a tender for a public–private partnership (PPP) to build the Arlanda Line. The construction of the line was subsidized with a combination of some state grants and large state loans. The successful tenderer would receive a monopoly on traffic between the airport and Stockholm until 2040. The line and the services were inaugurated on 25 November 1999. The PPP contract has since been criticized for being unclear, uneconomical for the state and leading to a low utilization of the service as ticket prices are very expensive at 340 SEK (around 30 EUR) for an adult single ticket on the very short journey. The service is operated by A-Train AB which is owned by the Swedish investment company EQT since 2025.