Bodø Airport ( no, Bodø lufthavn; ) is a civil

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

in the town of Bodø in Bodø Municipality in

Nordland Nordland (; smj, Nordlánnda, sma, Nordlaante, sme, Nordlánda, en, Northland) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region, the least populous of all 11 counties, bordering Troms og Finnmark in the north, Trøndelag in the south, N ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. Located just south of the city centre, on the westernmost tip of the Bodø peninsula, it shares facilities with the military air force base Bodø Main Air Station. The airport has a single concrete, runway which runs in a roughly east–west direction. In addition to jet operations to major domestic destinations, the airport serves as a hub for regional airline flights to

Helgeland Helgeland is the most southerly district in Northern Norway. Generally speaking, Helgeland refers to the part of Nordland county that is located south of the Arctic Circle. It is bordered in the north by the Saltfjellet mountains and Svartise ...

Lofoten Lofoten () is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Lofoten has distinctive scenery with dramatic mountains and peaks, open sea and sheltered bays, beaches and untouched lands. There are two towns, Svolvær ...

and

Vesterålen Vesterålen is a district and archipelago in Nordland county, Norway. It is located just north of Lofoten and west of Harstad. It is the northernmost part of Nordland county. Sortland is the largest town, situated near the center of the archipe ...

. A new airport could be ready in the last half of 2029, according to media's paraphrasing (in January 2022) of

Avinor Avinor AS is a state-owned limited company that operates most of the civil airports in Norway. The Norwegian state, via the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications, controls 100 percent of the share capital. Avinor was created on 1 ...

. Planning is in progress to build a new airport about one kilometer (0.6 miles) south and build a new smart city district on the site of the current airport. The smart city will be largely focused on transportation and sustainability.

History

Postal flights to Bodø started in 1921, and before 1940 Bodø was served with

sea plane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteris ...

s from

Widerøe Widerøes Flyveselskap AS, trading as Widerøe, is a Norwegian airline, and is the largest regional airline operating in the Nordic countries. The airline's fleet of 40 Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft, and 3 Embraer E190-E2 aircraft, serves over 40 ...

. The first runway at Bodø Airport was built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

by British troops, after Germany had invaded Norway. On 26 May 1940 three

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Gloster Gladiator The Gloster Gladiator is a British biplane fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s. Developed private ...

s, led by Flight Lieutenant

Caesar Hull Caesar Barrand Hull, DFC (26 February 1914 – 7 September 1940) was a Royal Air Force (RAF) flying ace during the Second World War, noted especially for his part in the fighting for Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and for b ...

, landed and made the first airborne defence for the city. The area was swampland, and the first makeshift runway consisted of wooden planks floating on the water. Soon the German

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

seized control over the airport, and held it for the duration of the war, among other things upgrading the runway to concrete. Not much was done with the airport until after the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

started in 1950. The West were afraid of a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

attack on Western Europe, so a new military base was constructed at a new location south-west of the old one. Originally planned to be finished in 1951, the new airport did not become fully operational until 1956, though the civilian terminal opened in 1952. From then on

fighter jet Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

s have been stationed at Bodø. In 1988,

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

injected vast amounts of money to enable the airfield to handle large air forces in the event of an emergency. The airport was used during the testing of

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

in June 1975. In the early 1980s the current civilian terminal was discussed and planned. The Norwegian Ministry of Finance approved the project early in 1988. The construction started a few weeks after its approval and was completed in spring 1990. The terminal has 11 gates, three with

jetway A jet bridge (also termed jetway, jetwalk, airgate, gangway, aerobridge/airbridge, skybridge, finger, airtube, expedited suspended passenger entry system (E-SPES), or its official industry name passenger boarding bridge (PBB)) is an enclosed, ...

s. Since its opening in 1990, the number of passengers increased from 820,000 to 1,700,000 in 2013.

Air force base

The Bodø Main Air Station, situated adjacent to the airport, is the largest air station in Norway operated by the

Royal Norwegian Air Force The Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF) ( no, Luftforsvaret, , The Air Defence) is the air force of Norway. It was established as a separate arm of the Norwegian Armed Forces on 10 November 1944. The RNoAF's peacetime establishment is approximatel ...

. This air station is the home of the 331st and the 332nd Squadrons equipped with

General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it ...

s in addition to a detachment from the 330th Squadron of

Westland Sea King The Westland WS-61 Sea King is a British licence-built version of the American Sikorsky S-61 helicopter of the same name, built by Westland Helicopters. The aircraft differs considerably from the American version, with Rolls-Royce Gnome engin ...

helicopters.

Airlines and destinations

The airport acts as a hub for regional airports between

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

and

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies ...

, in addition to being served by more than ten daily return flights to

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. Several international seasonal routes are also served.

Statistics

Ground transport

The airport is very near the city centre, about 1.5 km distance, and from the railway station 2.0 km. Travel to the airport can be done by local bus, by taxi, or by foot. There are also regional buses from the airport.

Norwegian Aviation Museum

The Norwegian Aviation Museum is located next to the airport in a propeller-shaped building. An aviation centre at the airport was approved by parliament on 31 March 1992, and opened 15 May 1994. The military part – Luftfartsmuseet (the Aviation Museum) was opened in May 1995. The Norwegian Aviation Museum was formed on 1 January 1998, founded by the government, the local city council of Bodø and county council of Nordland. The museum is a "national museum" and funded through the national budget. The museum exhibits several military aircraft including a

Lockheed U-2 The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day ...

, a

and a

Supermarine Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...

. There are also some civilian aircraft on display such as the

de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter is a single-engined, high-wing, propeller-driven, short take-off and landing ( STOL) aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada. It was conceived to be capable of performing the same roles as the earlier and ...

Junkers Ju 52/3m Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (JFM, earlier JCO or JKO in World War I, English: Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) more commonly Junkers , was a major German aircraft and aircraft engine manufacturer. It was founded there in Dessau, Germ ...

on floats, a

Fokker F.28 The Fokker F28 Fellowship is a twin-engined, short-range jet airliner designed and built by Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. Following the Fokker F27 Friendship, an early and commercially successful turboprop-powered regional airliner, Fokke ...

-1000 Fellowship.

Accidents and incidents

spy aircraft were stationed at Bodø in 1958. On 1 May 1960, a U-2 piloted by

Gary Powers Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 i ...

was headed for Bodø from

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

but was shot down, causing the

U-2 Crisis of 1960 On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. The single-seat aircraft, flown by American pilot Francis Gary Power ...

. *On 4 December 2003, a

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 19 ...

of Kato Airline operating as Flight 603 was struck by

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

, causing a fracture to the control rod that operated the

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

. The aircraft subsequently landed heavily just short of the runway at Bodø and was written off. Both crew members sustained serious injuries while both passengers sustained slight injuries. * On 29 September 2004, an asylum-seeker armed with an axe attacked the pilot of Kato Airline flight 605 from Narvik-Framnes, causing the aircraft, a

, to go into a dive. The assailant was overpowered by passengers, including

Odd Eriksen Odd means unpaired, occasional, strange or unusual, or a person who is viewed as eccentric. Odd may also refer to: Acronym * ODD (Text Encoding Initiative) ("One Document Does it all"), an abstracted literate-programming format for describing X ...

, later a member of the government (Minister of Commerce), and the aircraft made a safe landing at Bodø.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bodo Airport Airports in Nordland Airports in the Arctic Royal Norwegian Air Force airfields Avinor airports

Airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Heliports in Norway 1940 establishments in Norway Airports established in 1940 International airports in Norway