OSLO AIRPORT, GARDERMOEN

'Oslo Airport, Gardermoen' (Norwegian: 'Oslo lufthavn, Gardermoen') is located in Gardermoen in Ullensaker, Norway, 48 km north of Oslo. Enlarged and reopened in 1998 as a commercial airport, it is the main international airport serving Norway, with two runways. It is a hub of Scandinavian Airlines and Norwegian Air Shuttle and a focus city for Sterling and Widerøe. The airport serves as international airport with departures mostly within Europe, though there are also a few to other continents.
Approximately 17.7 million passengers travelled through Oslo Airport in 2006, which is an increase of 1.8 million since 2005, it is also the fastest growing major airport among the Nordic countries. In 2006 Oslo Airport passed Stockholm Arlanda (17.5 mill) as the second largest airport in the Nordic countries behind Copenhagen Airport (20.9 mill). The airport has two parallel runways of 2950 m and 3600 m, 34 passenger bridges and 5 commuter stands, 64 check-in counters and 71 aircraft stands.
The airport functions as a national hub, with a total of 25 domestic destinations, with 16 being served with jet aircraft. Seven are served on public service obligation contract with the Norwegian government using regional aircraft.
Gardermoen has the largest duty free shop in Europe. This due to the fact that Norway is not an EU member, and still may sell goods duty free to all international destinations. Since 2006, also arriving passengers are able to buy duty free products in a special shop located in the baggage claim area. Sandefjord Airport, Torp also serves Oslo, primarily by low-cost carriers and regional airlines, though Torp is located more than twice the distance from the city as Gardermoen.

Contents

History

Military and secondary

Finding a new airport

OSL Gardermoen

Alleged planning scandal

Questioning of weather surveys

Fog and deicing problems

December 14, 1998 ice incident

Art

Airport Hotel

Future plans

Ground transport

Airlines and destinations

Domestic scheduled

International scheduled

Charter

Cargo

Gallery

See also

References

External links

History

Military and secondary

The Norwegian-Danish army started using Gardermoen as a camp as early as 1740, when it was called Fredericksfeldt. The first flight took place in 1912, and by 1920 there were multiple hangars at the airport.
When the Germans invaded Norway during World War II they bombed the airport, but subsequently rebuilt it with two 2000-meter runways.
After the war, Gardermoen was used both for charter and intercontinental flights. Military operations were also conducted at the airfield. ^[1] Charter flights were operated from 1972 at Gardermoen instead of Fornebu due to a lack of slots at Fornebu, while intercontinental flights had to be operated from Gardermoen because the runway at Fornebu was too short. It was only in the 1990s that SAS flights to New York were moved to Fornebu. After the move and until the new terminal and other facilities were opened in 1998, the airport remained almost dormant of commercial flights but military flights used the airport. ^[1]

Finding a new airport

After Gressholmen (sea) and Kjeller Airport (land) had been serving Oslos as airports, the new airport at Oslo Airport, Fornebu opened in 1939. But in the 1980s, the airport was getting severe capacity problems. The airport had only one runway, so there were no available slots at the airport during morning and afternoon rush. This made it impossible for the new deregulated airline market to work, since potential new airlines would not have access to enough slots at Fornebu. A new runway could not be constructed because of space problems. The old airport also suffered from lack of adequate public transport, with no metro or railway line to the airport. The airport was located quite close to the city centre and beside a residential area, causing great sound pollution problems.
There were many candidate locations for the new main airport for Oslo, notably Hobøl, Hurum, Kroer, Ås and Gardermoen. Though the political process around the airport location started in the 1950s, the first real decision came in 1988 when legislature decided to build an airport at Hurum. But meteorological surveys showed that there would be too much fog at Hurum, and the process was cancelled.
On October 8 1992 parliament made a final decision to build an airport at Gardermoen.

OSL Gardermoen

A new operating company, Oslo Lufthavn AS took over the operating of Gardermoen and Fornebu. The decision in parliament meant that the new airport had to be built self-financing, and so a separate limited company had to be created to finance the new airport. The airport's total construction cost of NOK 11,4 billion was all borrowed by the company, and profits from airport operations are used to pay the debt. The company also operated Fornebu from January 1 1997. Oslo Lufthavn AS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Avinor AS, the Norwegian civil airport administration.
A new high-speed railway, Gardermobanen, was built at the same time as the airport. Trains depart the airport for Oslo Central Station six times each hour. It was the first high-speed railway built in Norway, and is now operated by Flytoget at 210 km/h.
Gardermoen took over as the main Oslo airport on October 8, 1998, when Fornebu Airport was closed except for some sea plane facilities. The transfer happened overnight, and was a major operation. The new airport has a capacity of 17 million passengers per year, and 80 air movements per hour. After the opening of Gardermoen, the access of slots at the airport and the arrival of a new low-cost carrier Color Air resulted in a major price war among the airlines, ending in 1999 when Color Air ceased operations. During this period there were almost 50 daily flights between Gardermoen and each of Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim.
In 1999, Northwest Airlines briefly operated a flight between Oslo and Minneapolis for several months with their DC-10-30 aircraft, before the flight was canceled due to poor load factors. In October 2001, the only remaining intercontinental flight, to New York (Newark),with SAS 767-300 aircraft was discontinued. In 2004, Continental Airlines resumed service on this route. There is also a regular connection to Pakistan, and some charter flights to Thailand and some other countries on other continents. In 2002 Norwegian Air Shuttle, started operations using Gardermoen as its hub. The airline serves 46 international and 8 domestic destinations. On January 18 2006, Liv Signe Navarsete, Minister of Transport and Communications, opened Europe's first infrared deicing hangar at Oslo Airport. The hangar will supplement standard deicing for the rest of the winter season.

Alleged planning scandal

The location at Gardermoen was met with considerable objections. Some focused on the long distance to Oslo and the need of a costly high-speed railway. Other concerns were the environmental impact on the area (a large ground water basin was discovered underneath the site), and claims that bad weather would cause problems.

Questioning of weather surveys

The weather surveys, which recommended the new airport be built at Gardermoen in place of Hurum, were questioned by civil engineer Jan Fredrik Wiborg. He claimed the information was falsified and that parliament were deliberately misled by government officials. Wiborg died on June 21 1994 after falling from a hotel window in Copenhagen, and crucial documents about the case disappeared. Circumstances about his death was never fully cleared. Journalists from the newspaper Aftenposten were awarded the prestigeous SKUP prize in 1999 for their investigation of the case.^[3][4] During 2000 the Constitutional Committee of Parliament held a public hearing about the alleged foul play during the airport planning process. An official report was released in 2001.^[5][6]

Fog and deicing problems

Since its opening, Gardermoen has had considerable problems with fog and freezing rain, causing complete close-down a few times. Super-cooled rain reportedly occurs on average three times a month during winter on the site, according to meteorological stats gathered since the 1950s.^[7] The use of deicing fluids is restricted since the area underneath the airport contains one of the nation's largest uncontained quaternary aquifers (underground water systems), the Trandum delta. ^[8]
In January 2006 an Infratek deicing system was set up, using infrared heat in large hangar tents. It was hoped that the method would decrease the use of chemical deicers by 90 %, but as of February 2007 the technique was still unsuccessful.^[9]

December 14, 1998 ice incident

In the morning of December 14 1998, a combination of freezing fog and supercooled rain caused severe glaze at Gardermoen. At least 20 aircraft engines were damaged by ice during take-off, and five aircraft needed to make precautionary landings with only one working engine.^[7] A similar incident took place in Denver International Airport on October 31 2002.^[11]

Art

At its inception, the airport included many pieces of art, including ''sound shower'' installations and moving images.
At the E6 motorway junction leading to the airport, there is a distinctive, 14 meter wide sculpture by Norwegian artist Vebjørn Sand, The Kepler Star. It consists of two Kepler-Poinsot polyhedrons. Illuminated internally, and mounted on a tall and dark pedestal, After dark, it appears like a giant star in the sky.

Airport Hotel

The airport compound includes the adjacent Radisson SAS Airport Hotel, a 7-story high building with 500 rooms, and meetings facilities with 60 conference rooms that can hold up to 1000 people. The hotel was completed shortly after the airport was inaugurated, afterwards expanded in 2006 due to rapid increase in passenger-numbers.

Future plans

Due to the rapid passenger growth, the airport has already exceeded its originally capacity limit of 17 million passengers per annum and soon to reach the critical limit of 20 million within few years.
There are plans for increasing the terminal area by adding a new terminal B situated 500m north of the present terminal, this is connected by an underground passage and may be completed in 2012 at the earliest. This idea was predicted even before the completion of the airport, it was therefore included in the development plans of the airport as a whole.
The Government has discussed the opportunity of a third runway in the future, but it is not planned to be completed until 2030.
Though estimates by Avinor show that the runway will be necesary by 2030, critics have pointed out that much larger airports, such as London Heathrow Airport, only have two runways. Also, in October 2007 Eastern Norway's third airport, Moss Airport, Rygge, will open. Still, the Norwegian Minister of Transport, Liv Signe Navarsete (Sp), has said that spreading the traffic between the three airports will result in incoveniences for air passengers and a massive need for inter-airport ground transportation, but she still has announced that she is opposed to a third runway. ^[12]

Ground transport

★ Rail

★
★ Rail service is provided from Oslo Airport Station, located beneath the terminal.

★
★ A high-speed train service, Flytoget takes 19 minutes for the journey to Oslo's central station. (Oslo S) every 10 minutes. It also serves suburbs east and west of Oslo.^[13]

★
★ All trains heading north of Oslo on Gardermobanen stop at the airport, including the express trains to Trondheim, the regional trains from Skien to Lillehammer and the local trains from Kongsberg to Eidsvoll. All of these trains are operated by the Norwegian State Railways^[14]

★ Bus

★
★ Flybussekspressen operates a bus service to the airport from Oslo, Fredrikstad, Ski and Gjøvik.^[15]

★
★ Oslo Airport Express Coach (Flybussen) operates a service from Oslo to the airport.^[16]

★
★ Most express buses from central and northwestern Norway stop at Gardermoen.

★ Motorway

★
★ The airport is located on European route E6.

★
★ 11,400 parking spaces.^[17]

Airlines and destinations

Domestic scheduled

★ Air Norway (Ørland)

★ Coast Air (Fagernes, Røros, Stord)

★ Danish Air Transport (Florø)

★ Norwegian Air Shuttle (Alta, Bergen, Bodø, Harstad/Narvik, Kirkenes, Stavanger, Tromsø, Trondheim)

★ Scandinavian Airlines System(Ålesund, Alta, Bardufoss, Bergen, Bodø, Harstad/Narvik, Haugesund, Kirkenes, Kristiansand, Kristiansund, Lakselv [seasonal], Longyearbyen, Molde, Stavanger, Tromsø, Trondheim)

★ Widerøe (Førde, Ørsta/Volda, Sandane, Sogndal)

International scheduled

★ Aeroflot (Moskva-Sheremetyevo)

★ Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)

★ Air Malta (Valletta)

★ Air Norway (Aalborg)

★ airBaltic (Riga, Vilnius)

★ Atlantic Airways (Vagar)

★ Austrian Airlines (Vienna)

★ Blue1 (Helsinki)

★ British Airways (London-Heathrow)

★
★ Sun Air (Aalborg, Aarhus, Billund)

★ Brussels Airlines (Brussels)

★ Cimber Air (Billund)

★ City Star Airlines (Aberdeen)

★ Continental Airlines (Newark)

★ Direktflyg (Borlänge/Falun)

★ Czech Airlines (Prague)

★ Estonian Air (Tallinn)

★ Finnair (Helsinki, Stockholm-Arlanda)

★ Finncomm Airlines (Helsinki)

★ FlyLAL (Palanga) [Seasonal]

★ FlyNordic (Stockholm-Arlanda)

★ Gotlandsflyg (Visby)

★ Hemus Air (Sofia)

★ Icelandair (Reykjavík-Keflavík)

★ Iceland Express (Reykjavík-Keflavík)

★ KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Amsterdam)

★ LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)

★ Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich)

★ Norwegian Air Shuttle (Alicante, Belgrade, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bordeaux, Budapest, Burgas, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Geneva, Gdansk, Hamburg, Heraklion, Istanbul-Sabiha Gokcen, Kos, Krakow, Las Palmas [starts October 31, 2007], London-Gatwick [starts October 28, 2007], London-Stansted, Longyearbyen [starts March 28, 2008]^[18], Madrid, Málaga, Marrakesh [starts October 29, 2007], Moscow-Domodedovo, Murcia, Nice, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Orly, Pisa, Prague, Pula, Rhodes, Riga, Rijeka, Roma-Fiumicino, St. Petersburg, Salzburg, Split, Stockholm-Arlanda, Szczecin [starts October 30, 2007], Tallinn, Tenerife-South [starts Oktober 28, 2007], Valencia, Varna, Venice, Vilnius, Warsaw, Zürich)

★ Pakistan International Airlines (Copenhagen, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore)

★ Scandinavian Airlines System (Alicante, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Berlin-Tegel, Brussels, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Crete, Copenhagen, Las Palmas, Lisbon, London-City, London-Heathrow, Madrid, Málaga, Manchester, Milan-Malpensa, Naples, Nice, Palma, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Reykjavík-Keflavík, Roma-Fiumicino, Stockholm-Arlanda, Zürich)

★ Sterling (Alicante, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Biarritz, Billund [starts October 28, 2007], Brussels [starts October 22, 2007], Copenhagen, Dortmund [starts October 29, 2007], East-Midlands [starts October 28, 2007], Faro [starts March 10, 2008], Firenze, Las Palmas, London-Gatwick [starts October 28, 2007], Málaga, Montpellier, Nice, Palma, Paris Charles de Gaulle [starts October 28, 2007], Rome-Ciampino, Salzburg [starts December 17, 2007], Tenerife-South)

★ TAP Portugal (Copenhagen, Lisbon)

★ Turkish Airlines (Istanbul-Atatürk)

★ Widerøe (Bornholm [summer], Gothenburg-Landvetter, Sumburgh, Visby)

Charter

★ Aegean Airlines

★ Air Europa (Barcelona, Alicante)

★ Air Wing

★ BRA Transportes Aéreos (Lisbon, Natal)

★ Eurocypria Airlines (Larnaca)

★ MyTravel Airways (Bourgas, Varna, Hurghada, Las Palmas, Karpathos, Korfu, Kos, Chania, Heraklion, Larnaca, Lanzarote, Limnos, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Skiathos, Antalya, Marmaris, Tenerife-South, Funchal, Phuket, Bangkok)

★ Nouvelair Tunisia (Tunis)

★ Novair (Cancun, Puerto Plata, Santorini, Skiathos, Parga/Lefkas, Larnaca, Zakynthos, Bourgas, Rhodes, Mytilini, Chania, Heraklion, Rome, Fuerteventura, Sharm el Sheikh, Las Palmas, Varadero, Hurghada, Recife, Goa, Tenerife-South, La Gomera)

★ Onur Air

★ Pegasus Airlines (Antalya)

★ SATA International

★ Scandinavian Airlines

★ Shaheen Air International

★ Shoruk Air (Monastir)

★ Spanair (Tenerife-South)

★ Travel Service Airlines

★ TUIfly Nordic (Isla De Margarita, Samos, Antalya, Heraklion, Kos, Varna, Bourgas, Las Palmas, Tenerife-South)

Cargo

The following cargo airlines fly to Oslo Airport:

★ Aeroflot

★ British Airways

★ Danish Air Transport

★ DHL

★ Guard Air

★ Jetpak

★ Korean Air

★ Lufthansa

★ SAS Cargo Group

★ TNT Cargo

★ United Parcel Service
Pegasus Airlines provides helicopter service.

Gallery

See also

★ List of the largest airports in the Nordic countries

★ Oslo ATCC

References

1. http://www.mil.no/pubs/fnett/forsvarsnett/luft/start/omlf/stasjoner/gardermoen/
2. http://www.mil.no/pubs/fnett/forsvarsnett/luft/start/omlf/stasjoner/gardermoen/
3. SKUP Prize 1999 The Norwegian Institute of Journalism
4. ''Wiborg and the Gardermoen weather report'' Pål Enghaug et al.
5. ''The political plotting of an airport'' whistleblowers.dk
6. ''Norwegian airport probe says court of impeachment must be considered'' California Aviation Alliance
7.
8. http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGS02/06897/EGS02-A-06897.pdf
9. ''Infrared fiasco at Gardermoen'' travelnews.no
10.
11. ''Snowfall and Freezing Precipitation'' National Center for Atmospheric Research
12. Navarsete satser på Gardermoen Dagens Næringsliv
13. Om Flytoget Flytoget
14. Tog Avinor
15. Flybussekspressen Flybussekspressen
16. Velkommen til Flybussen i Oslo! Oslo Airport Express Coach
17. Parkering Avinor
18. [1])

External links

★ Oslo Airport

★

★ Review of the airport by FlugRevue