Ranking the top lines in numerous ratings of economic and social development, Norway has all the necessary infrastructure for doing business. The geographical position of the country not only creates certain technical difficulties, but also gives significant advantages. Norwegian airports are an important part of the country's business infrastructure and are very helpful in doing business to both local entrepreneurs and foreign investors.
Features of geography and transport
The narrow strip of the territory of Norway stretches along the coast of the Barents and North Seas. At its widest point, Norwegian land barely reaches 420 kilometers. Given the considerable length of the territory, as well as the very harsh climatic conditions, airports in Norway are of great importance for the economy and social sphere.
Air ports are especially important for sovereign territories such as the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic Ocean at a considerable distance from the mainland.
Norway's main airport: history
As in many other countries, the main airport is located in the capital. Norway's largest international airport, located forty-eight kilometers from Oslo, is called Gardermoen.
In the early nineties, it became obvious that the existing capital Fornebu airport in Oslo stopped cope with the ever-increasing passenger flow, which began to grow due to the rapid development of business in the country. In this regard, it was decided to build a new airport in Norway.
In 1998, the first civilian flight landed in Gardermoen. The location for the construction of the airport was not random; in 1912, summer tests of the first airplanes were regularly conducted in this area, and during the Second World War there was an airfield of Nazi air forces that occupied the kingdom.
Gardermoen - the largest airport in the country
Today, this Norwegian airport is the fastest growing in Northern Europe, second only to Danish Kastrup in terms of passenger traffic. In 2017, the airport served about 25 million passengers, which is significantly more than a year earlier.
Regular flights connect the airport with twenty-five foreign airports, most of which fly jets. However, a feature of Gardermoen is the active use of local aviation on a thrust.
Oslo's main airport in Norway is a hub for two airlines - the Scandinavian Airlines System , the Norwegian Air Shuttle, which means that it connects all the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. In addition, this airport has the largest duty free trade area in Western Europe.
Bergen Airport, Norway
The country's second most important airport is located in the municipality of Bergen. Until 1999, this airfield was used not only by civilian, but also by military aircraft. Today, it is reserved exclusively for passenger traffic, the volume of which reaches six million people a year.
Despite the fact that flights to Spain and Israel fly from the airport, a significant part of the traffic is made up of short local routes. A large number of flights depart from the airport to oil platforms in the North Sea.
Numerous low-cost airlines make flights to the airport, which makes it popular among travelers who want to get to Oslo as cheap as possible. However, it is worth remembering that Norway is a very expensive country, and transport services there are among the most expensive in Europe. This means that a bus ticket from Bergen airport to the capital can cost no less than a plane ticket.
Svalbard Airport
State sovereignty cannot be effectively implemented without transport connectivity throughout the country. In the case of the remote Svalbard archipelago, transport infrastructure is of particular importance.
From an administrative point of view, Svalbard is part of the province of Svalbard, whose capital city is Longyearbyen. It is not surprising that the airport is the northernmost civilian airport in the world. Despite this, the passenger flow of the hub exceeds 138,000 people per year.
SAS daily flies to Oslo and Tromso. The peculiarity of the airport is that due to the special international status of the territory, passport control of Russian citizens is not carried out in it, although Norway is included in the Schengen zone.
Kirkenes Airport
Fifteen kilometers from the city of Kirkenes is a civilian airport, uninterruptedly operating since 1963. The annual passenger flow of the airdrome reaches three hundred thousand people, a significant part of which are Russian citizens, since Kirkenes is located in close proximity to the border, and the closest large city on the Russian side is Murmansk - the most significant settlement beyond the Arctic Circle.
Russians at Kirkenes airport are attracted by a large selection of low-cost airlines, thanks to which it is easy to get to any European city, having made only one transfer.