page_title: Bergen Airport, Flesland
section_title: Early operational history
hierarchical_section_title: Bergen Airport, Flesland / History / Early operational history
caption_attribution_description: English: A rear view of an F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft waiting for its turn for take-off. The Fighting Falcon is being deployed overseas for the first time to Flesland Air Station, a joint military/civilian airfield.
context_page_description: Bergen Airport, Flesland, alternatively Bergen Flesland Airport or simply Flesland Airport, is an international airport located at Flesland in the city and municipality of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. Opened in 1955, it is the second-busiest airport in Norway, with 6,306,623 passengers in 2018. Flesland is operated by the state-owned Avinor. Until 1999 Flesland Air Station of the Norwegian Air Force was co-located at the airport.
  Scandinavian Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Widerøe are the largest airlines operating at the airport. The route to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen is among the busiest in Europe. A substantial traffic is generated by CHC Helikopter Service and Bristow Norway to offshore oil platforms in the North Sea.
  Originally Bergen was served by water aerodromes at Flatøy, Sandviken, and Herdla. Financing of Flesland was largely secured through NATO funds and the airport opened on 2 October 1955. Until the 1980s, Bergen was the Norwegian airport used for SAS' intercontinental flights to New York. New terminals were opened in 1988 and in August 2017. The Bergen Light Rail was extended to the airport and opened in April 2017.
context_section_description: The first aircraft to land at the airport was a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter of the air force on 18 June 1954. At the time 800 meters (2,600 ft) of the runway was completed. Several in the year the paved section was extended to 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) and several Douglas DC-3 aircraft landed. The first revenue flight was a chartered carried out by Braathens SAFE for SK Brann, who flew to Oslo to play a football match. The military officially took the airport into use on 14 September 1954. The official civilian opening took place on 2 October 1955. By then the airport had a temporary terminal and control tower, the airport road was not paved, aviation fuel tanks were not installed and there was no snow-removal equipment.
  From the opening, Flesland was served by three airlines. SAS flew three round trips to Oslo and once per day to Stavanger, Kristiansand and onwards to Aalborg in Denmark, with correspondence onwards to Copenhagen. Twice per week the Stavanger flight corresponded with services to London and Amsterdam. Vestlandske Luftfartsselskap flew services northwards along the coast to towns in Møre og Romsdal and to Trondheim. Iceland-based Loftleiðir received permission to operate a flight from Flesland via Reykjavík to New York twice per week.
  The airport had 70,000 passengers during its first twelve months of operations and exceeded 100,000 the following year. The temporary terminal was too small for this traffic and already during construction there was designed a larger terminal by Halfdan Grieg. By 1956 it was determined that the new terminal building would be too small. Also an expansion of the runway was discussed that year. SAS announced that they would take delivery of the intercontinental jetliner Douglas DC-8, which would require a longer runway than was available at both Flesland and Fornebu. The cost of extending the runway to 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) would cost NOK 3.5 million in Bergen and NOK 30 million in Oslo.
  Helikopter Service established itself at Flesland in 1958, two years after the Stavanger-based company was established. The same year Vestlandske Luftfartsselskap filed for bankruptcy and Ålesund Airport, Vigra opened. Thus Braathens SAFE was awarded the concession for the route Stavanger–Bergen–Ålesund–Trondheim. Both SAS and Braathens were granted concession to operate the route from Kristiansand via Stavanger to Bergen. The same year a new terminal building opened.
  During a short period in 1959, there was a squadron stationed at Flesland. From 1962 there were regular detachment within NATO that were earmarked for Flesland. Every other year there were larger exercises with about a dozen aircraft and lasting for several weeks. Smaller training sessions were held every six weeks. The air station was upgraded in 1962 and consisted of a series of mountain halls, which could house more than twenty-five fighter aircraft. These also include barracks and commando facilities. Flesland was by NATO designated as a deployment site for nuclear warheads, which had prior to 1962 been designated to Sola Air Station. Components for nuclear bombs were most probably stored at Flesland, although the warheads were probably not stored there.
  With the delivery of DC-8-aircraft, SAS started a direct service to New York. Fornebu had too short a runway to handle the DC-8, so Flesland became the main intercontinental hub in Norway. Another important factor during the 1960s was the low range of the aircraft—thus Bergen was a stop-over for aircraft from Stockholm and Copenhagen. Later the route was taken over using the Boeing 747. SAS started a direct service from Bergen to Tromsø in 1965. Kristiansund Airport, Kvernberget opened in 1970, with Braathens SAFE receiving the route concession from Bergen. Two years later, in a national realignment of concessions, SAS lost their right to fly to Tromsø. Instead Braathens SAFE was granted the right to fly from Bergen via Ålesund, Kristiansund and the newly opened Molde Airport, Årø to Bodø and Tromsø.
  The first four regional airports in Sogn og Fjordane and Møre og Romsdal w
caption: US Air Force General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and Braathens Boeing 737-200 at Flesland in 1981
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