Roskilde Airport , officially known as Copenhagen Airport, Roskilde ( da, Københavns Lufthavn, Roskilde, ), is located 4 nautical miles (7 km) southeast of

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 51,916 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

near the town Tune. It was opened in 1973 as the first of three planned relief airports around

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. These plans were shelved shortly after, and the two other

relief airport A relief airport or reliever airport is an airport that is built or designated to provide relief or additional capacity to an area when the primary commercial airport, commercial airport(s) requires additional capacity, on a long-term or temporar ...

s never made it past the planning stage. The airport is owned and operated by Københavns Lufthavne A/S (Copenhagen Airports) which also operates Copenhagen's major airport at

Kastrup Kastrup () is a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark, on the east coast of Amager in Tårnby Municipality. It is the site of Copenhagen Airport. In Danish, the airport is often called ''Kastrup Lufthavn'' (Kastrup Airport) or ''Københavns Lufthavn, Kast ...

. The airport had 25,053 passengers in 2003. The airport is fully equipped, but most flights from this airport are taxi-flights, small-plane regular flights to minor domestic islands or business jets. It was once discussed to move all charter flights from

Copenhagen Airport Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup ( da, Københavns Lufthavn, Kastrup, ; ) is an international airport serving Copenhagen, Denmark, Zealand, the Øresund Region, and southern Sweden including Scania. It is the second largest airport in the Nordic coun ...

to this airport, but then the European aviation market changed as national airliners were allowed to be challenged by privately owned ones (1990s). The former charter airline companies in Europe then more or less had to either become regular challengers or vanish from the market. Hence, no flights with large aircraft have been moved to the airport. The runway is too short for fully loaded jet airliners such as the Boeing 737.

Overview

Operational facilities include: * ILS approach for runways 11 and 21 *

RNAV Area navigation (RNAV, usually pronounced as "''ar-nav"'') is a method of instrument flight rules (IFR) navigation that allows an aircraft to choose any course within a network of navigation beacons, rather than navigate directly to and from t ...

approach for runways 03 and 11 * Fuel:

100LL Avgas (aviation gasoline, also known as aviation spirit in the UK) is an aviation fuel used in aircraft with spark-ignited internal combustion engines. ''Avgas'' is distinguished from conventional gasoline (petrol) used in motor vehicles, w ...

and

Jet A1 Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial av ...

De-icing Deicing is the process of removing snow, ice or frost from a surface. Anti-icing is the application of chemicals that not only deice but also remain on a surface and continue to delay the reformation of ice for a certain period of time, or preve ...

service * Fire fighting category 5, 6 and 7 (on prior notice) * Met office and ATIS * Parking and hangar facilities * Aircraft repairs and overhaul The airport is open around the clock and has immigration and customs facilities for international traffic, but it is used primarily for taxi, business, and training flights and the airport serves as base for several flights schools. It is home to more than half of the Danish fleet of GA-aircraft. Roskilde Airport is planning an expansion of the runways and airport facilities to receive regular flights of low-cost international and

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

operators, including aircraft types of

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two un ...

and

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air F ...

-family sizes. However, due to lack of commitment from airline carriers these plans have been postponed until further notice.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at the airport: In 2002 the Ministry for Foreign Affairs Of Denmark reported that

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish ultra low-cost carrier founded in 1984. It is headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Ireland and has its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted airports. It forms the largest part of the Ryanair Holdings family ...

was in discussions with the airport about beginning scheduled service to

London Stansted London Stansted Airport is a tertiary international airport serving London, England, United Kingdom. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, northeast of Central London. London Stansted serves over 160 destinations acros ...

. It was believed that the location fairly close to the centre of

would attract the airline. The talks eventually came to nothing and

has not stated interest since. In October 2015, Ryanair instead started flights from the much larger and closer located

, which opened a low-cost terminal (after Ryanair had used

Malmö Airport Malmö Airport, until 2007 known as ''Sturup Airport'' ( sv, Sturups flygplats) is Sweden's fourth busiest airport, handling 1,975,479 passengers in 2019. The airport is located in Svedala Municipality, approximately east of Malmö and south ...

for some years).

Statistics

Military operations

A small

Danish Air Force The Royal Danish Air Force ( da, Flyvevåbnet, lit=The Flying weapon) (RDAF) is the aerial warfare force of The Kingdom of Denmark and one of the four branches of the Danish Defence. Initially being components of the Army and the Navy, it was ...

installation is located adjacent to the airport, called Flyvestation Skalstrup. On the airport grounds there is additionally a separate area with a hangar and helipad, for use by the

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

Eskadrille 722, which deploys an

AW101 Merlin The AgustaWestland AW101 is a medium-lift helicopter in military and civil use. First flown in 1987, it was developed by a joint venture between Westland Helicopters in the United Kingdom and Agusta in Italy in response to national requiremen ...

rescue helicopter on permanent alert to cover the area of

Sjælland Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020. It is the 1 ...

and the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. This facility also covers any other Air Force deployment if needed. Roskilde is now the only airfield used by the armed forces on

with the closure of

Værløse Air Base Værløse Air Base (Danish language, Danish: Flyvestation Værløse) is a former Royal Danish Air Force air base located just south of Værløse, Furesø Municipality, 20 kilometres northwest of central Copenhagen, Denmark. Its ICAO code is EKVL. ...

in 2004. Lately Roskilde Airport has been the departure airport of Danish troops deploying to or returning from overseas locations, primarily

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, due to its more private and secluded atmosphere, compared to the far busier Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup.

Ground transportation

Bus and train services from around the country to the nearby town of Roskilde are extensive, but bus services to and from the airport are infrequent due to its limited use, and the primary means of getting to/from the airport is by own car or taxi. The road distance to the airport from Roskilde is and from Copenhagen .

References

* AIP Denmark
Copenhagen/Roskilde - EKRK
* VFR Flight Guide Denmark
Copenhagen/Roskilde - EKRK

External links

*
Roskilde Airport
{{Authority control Airports in Denmark Roskilde Buildings and structures in Region Zealand Transport in Region Zealand Airports established in 1973 1973 establishments in Denmark