Stavanger Airport, Sola

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{| class="infobox bordered" style="width: 220px; font-size: 95%;" |- ! colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Stavanger Airport, Sola

Stavanger Airport, Sola is located in the municipality of Sola, Norway, near Stavanger. It is Norways fourth largest airport and offers, in addition to fixed-wing aircraft, has significant helicopter traffic for the offshore North Sea oil installations. In addition, the Royal Norwegian Air Force operates Sea King rescue helicopters from Sola Air Station.

The airport had 68 711 air movements and 2 785 031 passangers in 2005. Five airlines offer domestic flights to nine destinations while nine airlines offer international flights to 17 destinations. Two helicopter companies operate out of Sola. Most of the air traffic comes from the route to Oslo, which has about 25 daily flights with Boeing 737 aircraft.

In the vicinity of the airport, there is also an aeronautical museum.

Contents

1 History

1.1 The facilities
1.2 Civilan airlines
1.3 Foreign airlines
1.4 Future plans

2 Airlines and destinations

2.1 Domestic
2.2 International
2.3 Heliport

3 Sola Air Station
4 Technical facilities
5 External links

History

The facilities

Stavanger Airport, Sola is Norway's oldest airport, opened by King Haakon VII 29 May 1937. The airport was the second to have a concrete runway in Europe. The airport was attacked and captured by German paratroopers supported by aircraft on 9 April 1940. The attack was over in an hour, and the airport remained on German hands for the duration of World War II. During the second world war the german occupation forces and Luftwaffe expanded the airport considerable, as it was vital strategic point for the germans.

Originally the idea was to locate the Stavanger airport at Forus, but after the war the Royal Norwegian Air Force decided to use Sola temporarily until the new airport would be build, but nothing ever became of Forus. Sola Air Station has since been of vital importance for the norwegian armed forces, but lost gradually assignments, and in 1982 the last fighter sqadron left the airport.

Stavanger Airport has two passenger terminals, one for airplanes and one for helicopters. When the present terminal was taken into use 28th January 1987 it was the first airport in Norway to have skybridges, nine in total. The old terminal was then converted into a heliport. The airport has to crossing runways, the main runnway is north/south (18/36) while the main runnway for helicopters lays northwest-southeast (11/29).

Civilan airlines

Det Norske Luftfartsselskap (DNL, later Scandinavian Airline Systems or SAS) started flying to Sola after the war, as did Braathens S.A.F.E in 1946 on its journey to Europe and the Far East with Douglas DC-3 aircraft. In 1952 Braathens S.A.F.E got consession to fly the routes Oslo - Stavanger, Oslo - Kristiansand - Stavanger and the coastal route Stavanger - Bergen - Ålesund - Trondheim - Bodø - Tromsø. SAS on its hand got the consessions for Oslo - Bergen, Oslo - Northern Norway and international traffic. This division lasted until the deregulation of air travel in 1994. Widerøe established itself at Sola in the late 1980s after the bought Sandefjord-Torp based Norsk Air.

Sikorsky S-92 from CHC Helikopter Service

When the oil expropriation in the North Sea started in 1971 there was a sudden need for helicopter transport out to the oil platforms. The first helicopter service was Helikopter Service, owned by SAS and Fred. Olsen. Also Braathens S.A.F.E tried to operate helicopters, but soon sold out to Helikopter Service. Later Norsk Helikopter started.

Foreign airlines

British Airways predesessors started operating at Sola already after the war, but the first in 1980 did they start regular flights with [[BAC-111] aircraft to London-Heathrow. Later the route was operated with Boeing 737-200/-300/-400 and Boeing 757-200. In 1994 British Airways employes at Sola were transfered to Braathens S.A.F.E as part of a cooperation between the two airlines. But in 1997 KLM bought 30% of Braathens (as the airline was renamed) and British Airways closed its Stavanger routes because it lacked its own staff. Dan-Air London flew the route London-Gatwick - Newcastle - Stavnager until they went bankrupt in 1990. Also Norwegian Air Shuttle and Widerøe have flown to Newcastle.

The oil industry has also required scheduled routes between Stavanger and Scotland, primarily to Britains oil capital Aberdeen. In addition to SAS, Air Anglia (later Air UK, KLM UK and now part of Ryanair) flew the route. Today this route is flown both by City Star Airlines, SAS Braathens og Widerøe.

KLM Boeing 737-400

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines started in the 1970s flights to Stavanger from Amsterdam. They have used both Douglas DC-9-10, Boeing 737-200/-300, Fokker 100, Fokker F-27, Fokker 50 aircraft, and the route was the first that KLM operated with Fokker 70s. The route was operated by Braathens between 1997 and 2002. Today the route is flown three times daily with Boeing 737 aircraft from KLM. Also Air France has operated routes to Stavanger, with Boeing 737 to its hub at Paris-CDG. Norwegian authorities denied among others Northwest Airlines to start flying intercontinental flights from the United States.

Lufthansa started in 2003 to fly twice daily to its hub in Frankfurt in Germany with Canadair RJ-700 aircraft.

Future plans

In 2005 the work to upgrade the terminal building started. This work is planned to take some time and is done in different phases. A new domestic arrival hall was opened summer of 2005, and should be followed by a rebuild of the international arrival hall. A new international lounge is scheduled to be finished summer 2006. A new baggage sorting system, and extension of the check-in areas is scheduled to be completed by summer 2007.

Avinor is working with getting CAT II/LVTO approach system at the airport. This will allow planes to land with as little as 300 meters horisontal sight.

Airlines and destinations

McDonnell Douglas MD-82 from SAS

Dash 8 from Widerøe

Domestic

Atlantic Airways (Alta, Stord)
City Star Airlines (Kristiansund)
Norwegian Air Shuttle (Bergen, Oslo)
SAS Braathens (Bergen, Kristiansand, Kristiansund, Oslo, Trondheim, Ålesund)
Widerøe (Bergen, Sandefjord)

International

Atlantic Airways (Vagar)
City Star Airlines (Aberdeen)
Danish Air Transport (Billund, Esbjerg)
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Amsterdam)
Lufthansa (Frankfurt)
Norwegian Air Shuttle (Alicante, Dubrovnik, Malaga, Nice)
Scandinavian Airlines (Copenhagen)
* SAS Braathens (Aberdeen, Alicante, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Roma-Fiumicino)
Widerøe (Aberdeen, Newcastle)

Heliport

Sola Air Station

Sea King helicopter operated by the 330 sqadron at Sola Air Station, used for search and rescue

The armed forces have a number of functions located at the airport. The 330 sqadron operated Sea King seach and rescue helicopters are the only sqadron left at the airport, but still a number of military aircraft can be seen at the airport, among others NATOs AWACS aircraft.

Technical facilities

Sola has quite a number of technical facilities, and has the largest aviation technical enviroment in Norway. Among others, Braathens had its technical main base at Sola, as does Norwegian Air Shutte, CHC Helikopter Service, Norsk Helikopter, Norcopter, Pratt & Whitney Norway Engine Centre and the air force' helicopter technical main base.

On 16th June 2006 the board of SAS decided to close SAS Technical Services at Sola, which could result in 300 persons looting their job.

External links

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