Mo i Rana Airport, Fagerlia (Norwegian: Mo i Rana lufthavn; ICAO: ENMR) is a regional airport under construction, which will serve the town of Mo i Rana in Rana Municipality and surrounding municipalities in Nordland county, Norway. The airport will be located about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) outside the town.
Mo i Rana Airport, Fagerlia | |||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||
| Operator | Avinor | ||||||||||
| Serves | Mo i Rana | ||||||||||
| Opened | planned 2027 | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 66°19′40″N 014°20′0″E / 66.32778°N 14.33333°E[2] | ||||||||||
| Website | Ny flyplass Mo i Rana - Avinor | ||||||||||
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| Runways | |||||||||||
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It will replace the old nearby airport Mo i Rana Airport, Røssvoll which has a very short runway and only allows small propeller aircraft on short distances, mainly to Trondheim and Bodø. The new airport will have a fairly long runway allowing 6-seats wide jet aircraft going to Oslo and on international routes.
History
editIn 2002 the Ministry of Transport launched an idea of merging the three airports serving Northern Helgeland: Mosjøen Airport, Sandnessjøen Airport, and Mo i Rana Airport into one new airport with a large enough runway to fly jet aircraft like Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 aircraft directly to Oslo, and make it unnecessary to operate subsidized regional aircraft to Helgeland. There are also doubts about the future availability of large enough aircraft for 800-metre (2,600 ft) runways. Better roads between the areas including two long tunnels (Korgfjell Tunnel (opened in 2005) and Toven Tunnel (opened in 2014)) have also been built. It's not possible to extend the present runway at Røssvoll. A location was selected at Drevjadalen in Vefsn Municipality, about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of Mosjøen (which is 55 kilometres (34 mi) from Sandnessjøen and 70 kilometres (43 mi) from Mo i Rana). Meteorological tests showed that the location was too foggy, so a new location was searched for.
In June 2013 the parliament decided to build the new airport a few kilometers south of Røssvoll airport, and there was a construction start ceremony with the Prime minister in 2017. Still the real construction start got delayed because the government delayed their financial support. In May 2020 the government decided to take over the leadership of the airport construction through its airport company Avinor. Until then a municipality owned company led the project. This required redoing the plan, but in March 2021 the plans were done and were given go-ahead.[3]
Construction start was still been delayed due to formalities.[4][5] The first construction contracts were signed on 8 July 2022.[6] On 26 September 2022, construction works started with a ceremony.[7] Planned opening of the new airport was 2025. But already in February 2023, the plan for opening was changed to 2027.[8] In June 2023, financing was agreed upon, including 66 million kr from Rana Municipality, to make the runway 2,400 metres (7,900 ft) instead of 2,200 metres (7,200 ft), which will allow Boeing 737-800 and similar aircraft to take off and land fully loaded also in slippery icy conditions.[9]
References
edit- ^ "Innmeldingsskjema Forespørsel om tilgang til prosjekteringsmiljøet i Avinor" (PDF). Avinor. Retrieved 2022-08-12.
- ^ a b Grunneiermøte 25. oktober 2022 (see slide 20)
- ^ Andreas Budalen, Markus Thonhaugen: Enda en flyplass i Nordland får milliarder: – Dette hadde nok få trodd var mulig, nrk.no, 5. mars 2021
- ^ Synnøve Sundby Fallmyr, Andreas Nilsen Trygstad: Avinor anslår byggestart høsten 2021 – får kraftig kritikk fra ordfører, nrk.no, 3. juli 2020
- ^ Avinor gis konsesjon for flyplass i Mo i Rana
- ^ "Ny flyplass i Mo i Rana: Klart for oppstart" [New airport in Mo i Rana: Ready for start] (in Norwegian). NRK. 2022-07-08. Retrieved 2022-07-08.
- ^ "BLI MED INN" (in Norwegian). Avinor. Retrieved 2022-10-10.
- ^ Avinor vil utsette åpningen av ny lufthavn til 2027: – Dette bryter med stortingets vedtak
- ^ "Statens krav om økt lokalt tilskudd til Avinor for realisering av 2400 meter rullebanelengde og kommunal utbygging av vann- og avløpsløsning fra Brennåsen til E12" [The state's demand for an increased local grant to Avinor for the realization of a 2,400 meter runway length and municipal development of a water and drainage solution from Brennåsen to the E12.] (in Norwegian). Rana kommune. 2023-06-20. Retrieved 2023-07-02.
