Reykjavík Airport
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| Reykjavík Domestic Airport Reykjavíkurflugvöllur |
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| IATA: RKV - ICAO: BIRK | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public | ||
| Operator | Icelandic Civil Aviation Authority | ||
| Serves | Reykjavík | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 45 ft (14 m) | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 01/19 | 5,141 | 1,567 | Asphalt |
| 13/31 | 4,035 | 1,230 | Asphalt |
- This article is about the domestic airport; for the airport that serves international flights from Reykjavík, see Keflavík International Airport.
Reykjavík Airport (Reykjavíkurflugvöllur in Icelandic) (IATA: RKV, ICAO: BIRK) is a three-runway (curretly only two are active} domestic airport in Reykjavík, Iceland. Normally it only serves Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and some international charter and private flights.
[edit] History
The first flight from the airport area was September 3, 1919 with the take off of an Avro 504, the first aeroplane in Iceland [1]. Until 1937 there were experiments with airline operations in Vatnsmýri but with the foundation of Iceland's first airline, Flugfélag Íslands in Akureyri in 1938, operations began in the area and in March 1940 scheduled flights started taking off when Flugfélag Íslands moved its hub from Akureyri to Reykjavík.
The current airport was built by the British military during World War II on the south coast of Reykjavík peninsula, then a small town. The military began construction in October 1940 at which time the airport still only had a grass surface. On July 6, 1946 the British handed the airport operation over to the Icelandic government and since then it has been operated by the Icelandic Civil Aviation Authority.
The city has grown all around it in the following decades and it is now essentially located in the middle of the city. This location is considered inconvenient by some, both for safety reasons and because it takes up a lot of valuable space in a central location. This central location is also the reason why many wish to keep the airport where it is as it is a vital link between the national capital and the sparsely populated rest of the country. There is an ongoing debate about the future of the airport with the three options being: keeping the airport as it is, building a new one in the Reykjavík area or move the domestic flights to Keflavík International Airport and close the one in Reykjavík. The first choice would make it impossible to develop the highly valued land, the second choice would be most expensive and the third one would hurt the domestic service and reduce access to vital institutions in the capital such as hospitals.
Renovation of the airport started in 2000 and was finished 2 years later, in 2002, with the closure of runway 06/24 which was 3,150 ft (960 m). Following a referendum in 2001 were 49.3% voted to have the airport moved out of the city center while 48.1% voted to have the airport in place until 2016 when the current urban plan expires.
Following the renovation of the airport the width of both runways is 45 m with visual approach for runway 01 and 31 while runway 19 has ILS CAT I/NBD-DME approach and runway 13 has LLZ-DME/NDB-DME approach. The lights for the runways were also updated with LIH Wedge for all runways.
[edit] Terminals and destinations
There is currently only one terminal at Reykjavík Airport which handles both international and domestic departures from the airport from a hardstand.
- Air Iceland (Ísafjörður, Akureyri, Grímsey, Þórshöfn, Vopnafjörður, Egilstaðir, Kulusuk, Narsasuaq, Vagar)
- Atlantic Airways (Vagar)
- Islandsflug (Bíldudalur, Vestmanneyjar, Gjögur, Sauðárkrókur, Höfn)
Landsflug operates its destinations for Air Iceland while Atlantic Airways operates some Narsasuaq flights for Air Iceland as well as having a code share agreement to Vagar, Faroe Islands.
