Copenhagen Airport

Copenhagen Airport (Københavns Lufthavn, Kastrup) (IATA: CPH, ICAO: EKCH) is the major airport serving Copenhagen, Denmark and the other cities within the Oresund Region. It is located 8 km south of Copenhagen city center, and 24 km west of Malmö city center at the other side of the Oresund Bridge, on the island Amager. The airport lies mainly in the municipality of Tårnby, with a small portion in neighboring Dragør.

The airport is the main hub out of 3 used by Scandinavian Airlines System and was a hub for Sterling Airlines. Copenhagen Airport serves nearly 60,000 passengers per day; 21.4 million passengers passed through the facility in 2007, making it the busiest airport in the Nordic countries, and number 17 ^[1] in Europe, with a maximum capacity of 83 loadings/hour and with room for 108 airplanes. It is owned by Københavns Lufthavne, which also operates Roskilde Airport. The airport has 1700 employees (excluding shops, restaurants etc.). ^[2]

Copenhagen Airport was originally called Kastrup Airport, since it is located in the small town of Kastrup, now a part of the Tårnby municipality. The formal name of the airport is still Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, to distinguish it from Roskilde Airport, which formally is called Copenhagen Airport, Roskilde.

History

Copenhagen Airport Map

SAS A330 rolling for takeoff, This photo was taken from the airport viewing hill near the runway

• 1925: CPH opens for service on April 20. One of the first private airports in the world, it opens with a grass runway.
• 1932: 6000 take-offs and landings in the year.
• 1936–1939: New terminal, considered one of the finest examples of Nordic functionalism, is built (Architect: Vilhelm Lauritzen).
• 1941: First hard-surface runway is built.
• 1946: SAS is founded, an important event for Copenhagen Airport, as Copenhagen was to be the main hub for the airline. Traffic increases rapidly in the first years SAS operates. Also, Copenhagen Airport becomes Europe's third-largest.
• 1947: On 26 January, a KLM DC-3 crashes at the airport after stopping en route to Stockholm. 22 people die, including the Swedish prince Gustav Adolf, and the American opera singer Grace Moore.
• 1948: 150 take-offs and landings per day, and 3000 passengers are handled per day.
• 1950: 378,000 passengers are handled.
• 1954: 11,000 tonnes of freight handled per year. SAS begins the world's first trans-polar route, flying initially to Los Angeles. The route proves to be a publicity coup, and for some years Copenhagen becomes a popular transit point for Hollywood stars and producers flying to Europe.
• 1956: 1 million passengers handled per year. CPH wins the award for the world's best airport.
• 1960s: With the advent of jet airliners, debate begins about a major expansion of the airport. Jets need longer runways than had previously been used, and plans are drawn up to expand the airport either into existing communities in Kastrup or onto Saltholm, a small island. Local protests ensue and expansion is stalled for some time.
• 1960: On 30 April, Terminal 2, also designed by Lauritzen, opens. Also, a new control tower opens and the airport handles 2 million passengers per year.
• 1970s: The airport suffers from acute space shortages, especially with the advent of large jets such as 747s. After initially deciding to expand to Saltholm, the project is eventually blocked by Denmark's parliament.
• 1973: 8 million passengers handled per year.
• 1982: The Cargo terminal opens.
• 1986: A parking garage with 2400 spaces opens.
• 1991: The airport is partially privatised.
• 1998: Terminal 3 opens, and the airport handles 17 million passengers per year.
• 1999: Baggage handling system is modernised, and the Vilhelm Lauritzen terminal is moved 3.8 km down the runway to make room for new terminals, a hotel, and a train station.
• 2000: The airport handles 18.4 million passengers per year. A commuter train linking the airport to Copenhagen and Malmö opens.
• 2001: A five-star Hilton hotel with 382 beds opens at the airport. 267,000 take-offs and landings.
• 2005: Macquaire Airport buys 52% of stocks
• 2006: Number of passengers exceeds 20 million for the first time (20.9 million).
• 2007: A metro station opens, connecting the airport to the Copenhagen Metro.
• 2008: A new control tower is opened by Naviair as part of a major renovation of the ATC system. Airport officials announce plan to build a new low-cost terminal at the facility, which is expected to be completed by 2010.

Ground transport

Copenhagen Airport train station.

The airport can be accessed in various ways:

• Rail - the airport's station is located underneath Terminal 3 on the Øresund Railway Line and is served by DSB and Skåne commuter rail trains. SJ operates X2000 high-speed trains to the Swedish capital Stockholm as well.
• Metro - Line M2 of the Copenhagen Metro links the airport with the city centre.
• Bus - Movia buses 5A, 35, 36, 75 E, 76 E and 96 N and Gråhundbus line 999 all stop at the airport; bus 888, express-bus to Jutland, also stops at the airport. Movia bus 2A stops near the airport. There are long-distance buses to Sweden.
• Motorway - the E20 runs right by the airport, and junctions 15, 16, and 17 are situated nearby. The E20 uses the Oresund Bridge to Sweden. The airport has 8,600 parking spaces. Customers can pre-book their parking space online by visiting the Copenhagen Airport website [1].

Airlines and destinations

Control tower with an Icelandair Boeing 757 jet.

Copenhagen Airport has three terminals.

Terminals 2 and 3 share a common airside passenger concourse, and also share the arrivals section. The arrivals section, which houses customs and baggage claim, is physically located in Terminal 3.

Terminal 1

All domestic arrivals and departures:

• Cimber Air (Aalborg, Århus, Billund, Karup, Bornholm, Sønderborg – see T2, T3 for international destinations)
• Norwegian Air Shuttle (Aalborg)
• Scandinavian Airlines System (Aalborg – see T3 for international destinations)
  • Scandinavian Airlines System operated by Danish Air Transport (Århus)

Terminal 2

Terminal 2

Welcome to wonderful Copenhagen.

Baggage Claim

• Adria Airways (Ljubljana)
• Aer Lingus (Dublin)
• Aeroflot (Moscow-Sheremetyevo)
• airberlin (Berlin-Tegel, Düsseldorf, Palma de Mallorca)
• Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
  • operated by Brit Air (Lyon, Strasbourg)
• Air Greenland (Kangerlussuaq, Narsarsuaq)
• Arkia (Tel Aviv) [seasonal]
• Atlantic Airways (Faroe Islands)
• British Airways (London-Heathrow)
• Brussels Airlines (Brussels)
• Bulgarian Air Charter (Bourgas, Plovdiv, Sofia [starts December 20, 2008]) [seasonal] [2]
• China Eastern Airlines (Frankfurt, Shanghai-Pudong)
• Cimber Air (Basel/Mulhouse, Newcastle, Norrköping, Wroclaw – see T1 for domestic destinations)
• Continental Airlines (Newark)
• Croatia Airlines (Zagreb)
• Czech Airlines (Prague)
• Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
• easyJet (Berlin-Schönefeld, London-Gatwick [Begins 15th January 2009], London-Stansted, Milan-Malpensa)
• Finnair (Helsinki)
• Iberia Airlines (Madrid)
• Iceland Express (Akureyri, Reykjavik-Keflavík, Egilsstadir)
• Iran Air (Tehran-Imam Khomeini)
• Jat Airways (Belgrade)
• Jet Air (Bydgoszcz, Łódź)
• Jettime (Malta)
• KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Amsterdam)
• LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)
• Malév Hungarian Airlines (Budapest, Balaton)
• Middle East Airlines (Beirut)
• NextJet (Linkoping, Örebro)
• Novair
• Norwegian Air Shuttle (Alicante, Amsterdam [begins 12th April 2009], Budapest [begins 2nd April 2009], Edinburgh [begins 3rd April 2009], Faro [begins 4th April 2009], Heraklion [begins 2nd May 2009], Krakow [begins 2nd April 2009], Malaga, Nice, Oslo-Gardermoen, Paris Orly [begins 2nd April 2009], Palma Mallorca [begins 2nd April 2009], Pisa [begins 4th April 2009], Prague [begins 5th April 2009], Split [begins 2nd May 2009], Stockholm-Arlanda)
• Ostfriesische Lufttransport (Bremen)
• Pakistan International Airlines (Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Oslo)
• Rossiya (St. Petersburg)
• SkyEurope (Bratislava, Prague, Vienna)
• Sun D'Or (Tel Aviv) [seasonal]
• Swiss International Air Lines (Zürich)
• Syrian Arab Airlines (Damascus)
• TAP Portugal (Lisbon, Oslo)
• Transavia (Alicante, Barcelona, Faro, Innsbruck, Las Palmas, Malaga, Nice, Rome, Salzburg, Tenerife) [all begin on 8 December]
• Turkish Airlines (Istanbul-Atatürk)

Terminal 3

Terminal 3

• Air Baltic (Kaliningrad, Riga, Vilnius)
• Air One (Rome-Fiumicino)
• Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
• Blue1 (Helsinki)
• bmi
  • operated by bmi Regional (Edinburgh, Glasgow-International, Leeds/Bradford)
• Estonian Air (Tallinn)
• Icelandair (Reykjavik-Keflavík)
• Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Munich)
• Scandinavian Airlines System (Amsterdam, Athens, Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi, Beijing, Bergen, Berlin-Tegel, Birmingham, Bologna, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Chicago-O'Hare, Delhi, Dubai [seasonal]^[3], Dublin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Gdansk, Geneva, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Helsinki, Kiev-Boryspil, London-Heathrow, Madrid, Manchester, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Munich, Newark, Nice, Oslo-Gardermoen, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Pristina [seasonal], Rome-Fiumicino, St. Petersburg, Seattle/Tacoma, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tokyo-Narita, Turku, Venice, Vienna, Warsaw, Washington-Dulles, Zürich – see T1 for domestic destinations)
  • operated by Atlantic Airways (Bergen, Birmingham, Brussels, London-City, Stavanger)
  • operated by Cimber Air (Aalesund, Aberdeen, Bergen, Berlin-Tegel, Bucharest-Otopeni, Gdansk, Geneva,Gothenburg-Landvetter, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Kristiansand, Luxembourg, Nuremberg, Palanga, Poznan, Stuttgart, Tampere, Turku, Warsaw)
• Singapore Airlines (Singapore)
• Skyways Express (Karlstad)
• Spanair (Alicante, Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca)
• Thai Airways International (Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi)
• Widerøe (Haugesund, Sandefjord, Trondheim)

Cargo airlines

• DHL (East Midlands, Leipzig/Halle)

Incidents and accidents

A Douglas Dakota, similar to the KLM aircraft that crashed in 1947.

On 26 January 1947, a KLM Douglas Dakota, PH-TCR, crashed after takeoff from Copenhagen, killing all 22 onboard, including Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden.
The delayed KLM flight from Amsterdam had landed at Copenhagen for a routine stop before continuing to Stockholm. Soon after the Douglas DC-3 aircraft took off, it climbed to an altitude of about 50 metres (150 feet), stalled, and plummeted nose-first to the ground where it exploded on impact. Also aboard the ill-fated flight was American singer and actress Grace Moore. The investigation showed that the crash had been caused by a forgotten rudder lock. Short of time, the captain never performed his checklist and took off not realizing the lock was still in place.

See also

• List of the largest airports in the Nordic countries

References

• AIP Denmark: Koebenhavn/Kastrup - EKCH
• VFR Flight Guide Denmark: Koebenhavn/Kastrup - EKCH

External links

• Copenhagen Airport's official site