Departure
95%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Vágar Airport is the only airport in the Faroe Islands, set on the island of Vágar close to the village of Sørvágur, some 46 km west of the capital Tórshavn. Built during the Second World War as an RAF station and reborn as a civilian field in 1963, it is today the home base of flag carrier Atlantic Airways and offers a single long, ILS-equipped runway that makes it accessible to jet traffic despite the notoriously changeable North Atlantic weather.
Vágar Airport serves as the sole gateway to the Faroe Islands by air and is the principal operating base for the national carrier, Atlantic Airways. It sits on the island of Vágar, a short distance from Sørvágur, and is of particular interest to simulator pilots for its dramatic surroundings of steep hillsides and sea inlets, its history as a wartime RAF airfield, and the demanding approach environment that has driven the adoption of advanced navigation procedures for landing in fog.
The airport lies on the island of Vágar in the Faroe Islands, about 1 NM east of the village of Sørvágur and roughly 46 km (29 miles) west of Tórshavn, the Faroese capital. As the only airport in the archipelago it is the focus of all air traffic in Faroese airspace; the surrounding terrain of hills and fjord-like inlets shapes the approach and departure paths.
The airport has a single physical runway, 12/30, of 5,894 ft with a hard surface. It is lit and equipped with an ILS, making it usable for instrument approaches in the poor visibility that is common in the islands.
Air traffic services are provided as AFIS, with the frequency 124.85 MHz. The runway is served by an ILS, and operators including Atlantic Airways and Scandinavian Airlines have adopted Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approach procedures, which allow landings in reduced visibility conditions provided the aircraft, crew and operator hold the necessary equipment, training and approval.
The airfield was built by British Army Royal Engineers during the Second World War, when it was known as RAF Vagar (or Vaagar); the site was chosen partly because it was difficult to observe from the surrounding waters, reducing the risk of detection by German warships. The first aircraft landed there in the autumn of 1942, as part of the wider British occupation of the Faroe Islands. After the war the airfield was abandoned and lay unused until 1963, when it was reopened as a civilian airport at the initiative of two Sørvágur residents, Hugo Fjørðoy and Lars Larsen, working with Icelandair, which began scheduled Douglas DC-3 services to Bergen, Copenhagen and Glasgow. A separate operator, Faroe Airways, flew from 1964 until it ceased operations in September 1967. Icelandair continued to serve the airport with Fokker F27 Friendship aircraft into the 1990s, and Atlantic Airways began BAe 146 jet service to Copenhagen in 1988, later partnering with Icelandair from 1995 to fly to Reykjavík and Narsarsuaq in Greenland. Maersk Air also operated Boeing 737-500 services to Copenhagen until 2004, after which Atlantic Airways became the sole scheduled operator. The opening of the Vágatunnilin road tunnel in 2002 ended the need for a car ferry between the airport and Tórshavn. The runway was extended from 1,250 m to 1,799 m between 2010 and 2011, opening the field to a wider range of aircraft, and Atlantic Airways introduced Airbus A319 services on the extended runway from March 2012. A new terminal opened in June 2014, and Scandinavian Airlines began flying from Copenhagen in March 2016, though early services were hampered by fog-related cancellations before the airline adopted RNP approach procedures in 2019; Atlantic Airways had already introduced the same technology in 2012 as the first operator in Europe to do so.
Vágar remains the only airport in the Faroe Islands and the main base for Atlantic Airways, which operates scheduled and seasonal jet services alongside a helicopter network linking outlying settlements. Scandinavian Airlines and, from 2024, Icelandair with Dash-8 aircraft also serve the field. The runway's ILS and the use of RNP approach procedures by based and visiting operators reflect the airport's exposure to fog and low cloud, a persistent factor for any pilot planning a visit.
