History

Esbjerg was one of the first towns in Denmark to have an airport of its own.

On the 18th of July 1937 the first airport in Esbjerg was opened. It was located in Kjersing on a site, which is now part of the town of Esbjerg. The unique thing about this airport was that SAS, which was called DDL in those days, set up its first domestic route from there. The first season ran from the 18th of July till the 15th of September, during which time 337 passengers were carried/serviced.

As the years went by the number of operations from the airport increased. Plans were made to set up a new, modern airport. Various governments adopted and postponed many such plans. In 1968 the search for oil in the North Sea was initiated. In addition to the already on-going traffic, this meant a great deal of helicopter flights between Esbjerg and the oilrigs in the North Sea. Little by little it became clear that only the town council of Esbjerg could change the precarious situation.

Economics

The construction of the new airport was initiated in the spring of 1970. The cost of construction was budgeted at DKK 16.9 mill. The airport's consultant was civil engineer C.V. Hansen, who was airport manager at Tirstrup. The number of passengers was estimated at 55,000 passengers in the opening year of 1971 and 263,000 in 1983. The actual figures were 45,000 and 223,000. The operations were expected to run at a deficit of DKK 1.5 mill in 1971 and at a surplus of DKK 1.7 mill in 1985. The latter number, as some will know, was not realised. In 1969 the construction cost of the airport was re-evaluated and the figure was now at DKK 36 mill.

Regular Routes

As mentioned, there has been a tradition for domestic flights to Copenhagen throughout the history of the airport. Since SAS took over Maersk Air in 1979 the company has operated many different types of aircraft. However, it was decided to stop all activities in 1999. After this, Cimber Air made an attempt with the aircraft type ATR 42. Unfortunately for Esbjerg Airport as well as all of greater Esbjerg, all domestic flights to Copenhagen were stopped in the spring of 2000. Whether it will be re-established remains unknown.

The opening of the bridge across Storeb?lt (the Big Belt), a new tax on passengers flying domestically and huge investments in train operations has all helped to choke the domestic flights between Esbjerg and Odense. Domestic routes in other parts of the country are suffering, too.

Instead, there are now daily international connections to Stavanger, operated by Danish Air Transport, as well as to Aberdeen by British Midland and to London by Ryanair.

At the opening of the airport offshore traffic was limited, although helicopter flights had been taking place for a few years at the old airport. In 1971, offshore helicopters carried 100 passengers per month. It was the British company Bristow Helicopters that handled the flying with a Wessex holding 19 passengers. In 1977 the number had risen to approximately 600 passengers by helicopter per month.

From 1975 to 1999 Maersk Helicopters operated offshore flights. In the mid-1990s these flights were taken over by CHC Denmark. However in February 2003 the newborne company DanCopter took over the flight for DONG and Amarada Hess. The company UNI-FLY runs the flight to the offshore windpowerfarm Horns Rev.

Runway 08/26

8527 x 148 feet
2599 x 45 meters

Navaids

The content above was published at Airports-Worldwide.com in 2005.
We don't guarantee the information is fresh and accurate. The data may be wrong or outdated.
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