Stokmarknes Airport, Skagen (Norwegian: Stokmarknes lufthavn, Skagen) is an airport

Airport

An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...

 in Hadsel

Hadsel

Hadsel is a municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Vesterålen traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Stokmarknes, and the other village on the island of Hadseløya is Melbu. Hadsel was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...

 municipality in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, 3 nautical mile

Nautical mile

The nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...

s (5.6 km) east northeast of Stokmarknes

Stokmarknes

is a small town on the island of Hadsel in Nordland, Norway. It is the municipality centre of the Hadsel municipality. Township was declared in 2000. It is home to Hurtigruten. The local hospital for the Vesterålen region is situated in Stokmarknes....

, and (20.0 km) south of Sortland

Sortland

is a town and municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is part of the Vesterålen traditional region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Sortland. In 1997, the municipality decided to declare township for Sortland...

.

Widerøe is the only approved scheduled air carrier to operate from the airport, using Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

-built De Havilland Canada Dash 8 STOL

STOL

STOL is an acronym for short take-off and landing, a term used to describe aircraft with very short runway requirements.-Definitions:There is no one accepted definition of STOL and many different definitions have been used by different authorities and nations at various times and for a myriad of...

 (short take-off and landing) aircraft. Other traffic include the Norwegian Coast Guard

Norwegian Coast Guard

The Norwegian Coast Guard, or Kystvakten in Norwegian, is a military force and part of the Royal Norwegian Navy, but has separate vessels, many of which are purpose-built. All coast guard vessels have the prefix KV. Four of these vessels are capable of embarking one or more helicopters...

s Dornier Do 228

Dornier Do 228

The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, manufactured by Dornier GmbH from 1981 until 1998. In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics bought a production licence and manufactures the 228 for the Asian market sphere. Approximately 270 Do 228 were built at Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and...

 and ambulance flights (MEDEVAC

MEDEVAC

Medical evacuation, often termed Medevac or Medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to the wounded being evacuated from the battlefield or to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of an accident to receiving medical facilities using...

) using Beechcraft Super King Air

Beechcraft Super King Air

The Beechcraft Super King Air family is part of a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation . The King Air line comprises a number of model series that fall into two families: the Model 90 series, Model 100 series , Model 200 series and Model 300 series...

s.

History

The airport opened 1 July 1972 as part of a government program of building a series of small airports along the coast. This was a major success and an important step for the population in the area (Vesterålen

Vesterålen

Vesterålen is a district and archipelago in Nordland, Norway, just north of Lofoten.-The name:The Norse forms of the name were Vestráll and Vestrálar . The first element is vestr n west, the last element is áll m ' sound, strait'...

  archipelago

Archipelago

An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...

), who now could travel to the bigger cities of Norway and the rest of the world in one day, not weeks. Currently owned and operated by Avinor

Avinor

Avinor AS is a state owned limited company in that operates most of the civil airports in Norway. The Norwegian state, via the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications controls 100 percent of the share capital. Avinor was created on 1 January 2003, by the privatization of the...

, the airport was managed by the Hadsel municipality for the first 20 years.

Extension

There is work in progress for extending RESA and improving the strip around the runway

Runway

According to ICAO a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft." Runways may be a man-made surface or a natural surface .- Orientation and dimensions :Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, which is generally one tenth...

, for completion in the fall of 2006.