Stokmarknes Airport (; ) is an

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

in Hadsel Municipality in

Nordland Nordland (; , , , ) is one of the three northernmost Counties of Norway, counties in Norway in the Northern Norway region, bordering Troms in the north, Trøndelag in the south, Norrbotten County in Sweden to the east, Västerbotten County to t ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It is located on the island of

Langøya Langøya is the third largest island of Norway (outside of Svalbard), with an area of . The island is a part of the Vesterålen archipelago in Nordland county, Norway. The island includes Bø Municipality and Øksnes Municipality as well as pa ...

, about northeast of the town of Stokmarknes and about southwest of the town of Sortland. Widerøe is the only approved scheduled air carrier to operate from the airport, using

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

-built

De Havilland Canada Dash 8 The De Havilland Canada DHC-8, commonly known as the Dash 8, is a series of turboprop-powered regional airliners, introduced by de Havilland Canada (DHC) in 1984. DHC was bought by Boeing in 1986, then by Bombardier in 1992, then by Longv ...

STOL A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that can takeoff/land on short runways. Many STOL-designed aircraft can operate on airstrips with harsh conditions (such as high altitude or ice). STOL aircraft, including tho ...

(short take-off and landing) aircraft. Other frequent traffic includes ambulance flights (

MEDEVAC Medical evacuation, often shortened to medevac or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to patients requiring evacuation or transport using medically equipped air ambulances, helicopters an ...

) using

Beechcraft Super King Air The Beechcraft Super King Air family is part of a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by Beechcraft. The Model 200 and Model 300 series were originally marketing, marketed as the "Super King Air" family; the "Super" designation was droppe ...

s operated by Babcock Scandinavian Air Ambulance.

History

The airport opened 1 July 1972 as part of a government program of building a series of small airports along the coast. This was a major success and an important step for the population in the area ( Vesterålen

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

), who now could travel to the bigger cities of Norway and the rest of the world in one day, not weeks. Currently owned and operated by

Avinor Avinor AS is a state-owned aksjeselskap, 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 wa ...

, the airport was managed by the Hadsel municipality for the first 20 years.

Airlines and destinations

Statistics

Extension

Work on extending RESA and improving the strip around the

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

was completed in 2006. In March 2015, Avinor decided to postpone plans for extending the runway to 1199 meters.

References

Airports in Nordland Airports in the Arctic Avinor airports Hadsel 1972 establishments in Norway Airports established in 1972 {{Nordland-geo-stub