Keflavík Airport

Keflavík Airport
Characteristics
ICAO code	BIKF
IATA code	KEF
Coordinates	63 ° 59 ′ 6 ″ N , 22 ° 36 ′ 20 ″ W Coordinates: 63 ° 59 ′ 6 ″ N , 22 ° 36 ′ 20 ″ W
Height above MSL	52 m (171 ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	50 km southwest of Reykjavík
Street
Local transport	Airport Express, Flybus
Basic data
opening	1943
operator	Isavia Ltd.
surface	2500 ha
Terminals	1
Passengers	7,247,820 (2019)
Air freight	54,589 t (2019)
Flight ; movements	86.003 (2019)
Runways
01/19	3054 m × 60 m asphalt
10/28	3065 m × 60 m asphalt

Apron and boarding gates, hangars, freight and cold stores

The Keflavik Airport (isl. Keflavíkurflugvöllur , Eng. Keflavík International Airport , NATO designation Keflavik Air Base ) is the largest airport of Iceland , almost the entire international civil and military air traffic handles the island.

Location and transport links

The airport is located on the south-western tip of Iceland in Keflavík on the Reykjanesskagi peninsula within the Reykjanesbær municipality , 40 km southwest of the Icelandic capital Reykjavík and Reykjavík Airport . A motorway-like road connects the airport with the Reykjavík metropolitan area . There is an infrastructure typical of international airports for individual traffic with taxis and rental cars .

Bus connection : The Flybus operated by Reykjavík-Excursions - Kynnisferðir and the Airport Express operated by the Gray Line bus company run between the BSÍ bus terminal in the center of Reykjavík and the international airport . The journey takes 40–50 minutes, and it is also possible to travel to larger hotels and Reykjavík Airport. The departure times are based on the flight schedule.

Rail transport does not exist, but there are concrete plans for the construction of a rapid transit railway to Reykjavík.

Civil aviation

More than 99% of all scheduled passenger flights from Keflavík are operated internationally. Domestic flights and some flights to Greenland and the Faroe Islands , on the other hand, run via the neighboring airport, Reykjavík Airport .

The only passenger terminal at Keflavík Airport is called Flugstöð Leifs Eiríkssonar or Leifsstöð for short ( Leif-Eriksson Terminal). The terminal, in operation since 1987, was expanded for the third time in 2015/16.

International passenger traffic

All international destinations from Keflavík are in North America (27 cities), Europe (57 cities) and the Middle East (2 cities). The airline Icelandair operates its aviation hub between North America and Europe in Keflavík with numerous connecting flights.

Non-stop flights to North America are (in alphabetical order) to Anchorage , Baltimore , Boston , Chicago , Denver , Detroit , Edmonton , Halifax , Los Angeles , Miami , Minneapolis , Montreal , Narsarsuaq , New York City , Newark , Nuuk , Orlando , Philadelphia , Pittsburgh , Portland , San Francisco , Seattle , Tampa , Toronto , Vancouver and Washington . These destinations are served by four airlines from Keflavík, in addition to Icelandair , these are Air Greenland , Air Canada Rouge and Delta Air Lines .

29 airlines fly from Europe to Keflavík, significantly more than from Keflavík to North America. In addition to some classic airlines (such as Icelandair , Lufthansa , Austrian , SAS , British Airways ), numerous low-cost airlines fly : easyJet , easyJet Switzerland , Eurowings , Transavia , Vueling , Wizz Air , Iberia Express , airBaltic and Norwegian . There are also charter flights with changing airlines as operators.

A total of 10 airlines fly to Keflavík from 15 German-speaking cities. Icelandair also offers direct transfers to the USA and Canada at its Keflavík hub.

Flights from German-speaking cities to / from Keflavík
airline	Airport
Austrian Airlines	Seasonal: Vienna
easyJet Switzerland	Seasonal: Basel-Mulhouse , Geneva
Edelweiss Air	Seasonal: Zurich
Eurowings (operated with a Boeing 737-800 from TUIFly )	Seasonal: , Cologne / Bonn ( via Hamburg ), Dusseldorf ( via Hamburg ) Hamburg , Stuttgart ( via Hamburg ), Dresden ( via Hamburg )
Icelandair	Frankfurt , Munich , Berlin – Tegel , Zurich (from November 2017 Mon, Fri, Sun) Seasonal: Hamburg , Düsseldorf
Lufthansa	Frankfurt , Munich
Wizz Air	Seasonal: Vienna , Dortmund

Most frequent connections from / to Keflavík
Rank 2019	city	Flights 2015	Flights 2016	Flights 2017	Flights 2018	Flights 2019
1	London	4,418	5,319	6,358	7,220	5,455
2	Copenhagen	2,708	3,462	3,604	3,450	3,255
3	new York	2,065	2,417	2.983	3,776	2,539
4th	Oslo	2.122	2,221	2,245	2,171	2,216
5	Paris	1,905	2,606	2.986	2,805	k. A.
6th	Amsterdam	k. A.	k. A.	2,259	2.233	k. A.
7th	Boston	1,753	1,982	1.953	k. A.	k. A.
8-10	Frankfurt am Main , Stockholm , Toronto (alphabetical)

Economy and cargo air travel

The airport is the base of the passenger airlines Icelandair and WOW air, the cargo airlines Bluebird Cargo and Icelandair Cargo as well as the global wet lease companies Air Atlanta Icelandic and Loftleiðir Icelandic . Keflavík is also regularly served by the cargo airlines Atlas Air and ASL Airlines Belgium on behalf of customers (partly wet lease) .

The export of fresh fish by cargo air traffic to North America and Europe is of great economic importance . 76% of all Icelandic export revenues are generated with fish products and their service and transport services. 16% of the fish caught in Icelandic waters are brought to their destinations in Europe and North America via air freight; in 2015 this corresponded to a value of € 273 million.

There are also cold stores for fresh fish on the premises of Keflavík Airport .

Military aviation

Naval Air Station Keflavik, 1982

The Keflavik Airport is also a NATO - military airfield with the official name Keflavik Air Base , the military facilities from the Icelandic Coast Guard to operate. The NATO Iceland Air Defense System (IADS) exists here together with a radar station of the air reconnaissance system and the NATO Control and Reporting Center (CRC), Keflavík . These facilities are responsible for extensive surveillance of NATO airspace in the North Atlantic .

Since Iceland officially has no military , the Keflavík Air Base has been periodically visited by military forces of the NATO allies since 2008 exclusively as part of Air Policing Iceland . Since 2016, alternating allies have been moving combat aircraft with their support units to Keflavík three to four times a year .

The US Navy , which operated Keflavík Air Base as Naval Air Station Keflavik (NASKEF) from 1951 to 2006 , announced after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 that it wanted to carry out extensive renovations to hangars and other facilities in order to accommodate maritime patrols of the type , depending on the situation To be able to station Boeing P-8 "Poseidon" . There should be no permanent stationing of US military aircraft, the machines required for exercises or missions in Northern Europe should be relocated from the US base in Sigonella, Italy, to Keflavík.

Traffic figures

Since 2010, Keflavík has increasingly been the destination of European low-cost airlines. They can fly inexpensively to Keflavík and back with their narrow-body aircraft (mostly the A320 and B737 families) from Western Europe and Scandinavia without having to refuel. The number of passengers has therefore increased at double-digit annual rates since 2010. The major centers of the east coast of the United States and the Great Lakes region in Canada and the USA are also within the range of narrow-body aircraft from Keflavík. In just three years (2012–2015) the number of transit passengers who transferred between North America and Europe in Keflavík doubled. Based on the figures, Keflavík Airport is to be expanded in the medium term from 4.5 million to a capacity of 14 million passengers.

Traffic figures from 1994.
year	Passengers (total)	Passengers (in transit)	Air freight (in tons)	Flight movements (without touch-and-go )
1994	1,060,049	440.834	17,331	22,941
1997	1,409,017	634.130	25,611	26,369
2000	1,835,265	759.120	40,341	29,433
2003	1,580,400	423,808	42,386	26,079
2006	2,272,917	535.969	61,799	28,710
2007	2,429,144	536.260	59,742	28,559
2008	2,193,434	438,347	53,564	27,729
2009	1,832,944	398,577	36,880	23,989
2010	2,065,188	580.918	35,920	26,917
2011	2,474,806	745.858	37,853	30,129
2012	2,764,026	776.301	40.171	31,950
2013	3,209,848	927.893	42,471	35,747
2014	3,867,425	1,147,810	42,964	41,520
2015	4,858,505	1,465,274	44,733	46,642
2016	6,821,358	2,198,804	49,620	58,245
2017	8,755,352	3,046,024	56.101	70,702
2018	9,804,388	3,882,619	59,263	76,149
2019	7,247,820	2,030,777	54,589	61.993

incident

On March 30, 1951, a Douglas DC-4 / C-54B-1-DC of Seabord & Western Airlines (later Seaboard World Airlines , aircraft registration number N74644 ) came off the runway when landing at Keflavík Airport, collided with piles of snow and caught Fire. All six crew members survived. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair.

Art objects

The "Jet Nest" by Magnús Tómasson shows a large steel egg from which a jet wing protrudes like a small bird hatching from an egg.
The "Rainbow" is a sculpture made of stainless steel and stained glass by Rúrí and was erected in 1991 with a height of 24 meters.