Svalbard Airport, Longyear

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The lufthavn Svalbard, Longyear (IATA: LYR, ICAO: ENSB ) is the largest airport in Svalbard. He located five kilometers northwest of the village of Longyearbyen. The airport belongs Avinor AS.

In 1973, the runway was built, however, prepared in 1989 the permafrost problems and so the airport had to be briefly closed again. The first aircraft flew on 14 September 1973 by Longyear, it was a Fokker F-28 of the Norwegian airline Braathens SAFE (now SAS Norge). Officially, the airport was opened September 2, 1975. In the autumn of 2005 it was decided to build a new terminal for the airport. The work was completed in 2009.

The main airline is SAS Scandinavian Airlines, they fly every day in summer and once a day to Tromso to Oslo. In winter there is a maximum of five connections per week via Tromso to Oslo. The Norwegian low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle flew in the past, the airport and connects Longyearbyen in March 2013 with Oslo. Occasionally there are also flights to the North Pole in the summer or on the northern pack ice as well as charter flights to Longyearbyen, so ended up in the last few years even aircraft from LTU and Air Berlin in the summer directly from German airports as part of special flights occasionally in Longyearbyen. There are also regular flights to Svea and Ny -Ålesund, although most are only available to mine workers or research Equipen available. Barentsburg can only be reached by helicopter.

The airport is used annually by more than 125,000 passengers. Passenger traffic continues to grow as more and more people are moving to the island. The supply of the island depends largely on the airport.

Accidents

• On October 10, 1986, a Cessna crashed. All five occupants were killed.
• On August 29, 1996, a Russian Tupolev Tu- 154M crashed near the airport. The aircraft will depart Vnukovo Airlines was en route from Moscow to Longyearbyen and had Ukrainian miners on board. 14 km before the airport crashed into the machine in 900 m high against the Operafjellet ( German: Oper mountain ), all 141 passengers were killed.