Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Kirkenes Airport, Høybuktmoen serves the town of Kirkenes in the far northeast of Norway, close to the Russian border, and is operated by Avinor. It is a remote but well-equipped Arctic aerodrome with a single hard-surfaced, lit runway and an ILS, handling scheduled airline traffic year round.
Kirkenes Airport, Høybuktmoen lies at Høybuktmoen in Troms og Finnmark, serving the town of Kirkenes in Norway's far northeast, not far from the Russian border. It is operated by Avinor and handles scheduled airline services, making it an interesting destination for the simulator pilot seeking a genuinely remote Arctic field with modern instrument approach capability.
The airfield sits at Høybuktmoen, at coordinates 69.725 N, 29.8878 E, at an elevation of 279 feet. It lies within Norwegian airspace serving the Kirkenes area in the far northeastern corner of the country, close to the border with Russia.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 05/23, of hard surface and lit throughout. The runway measures 6711 feet from the 05 threshold and 5459 feet from the 23 threshold, and runway 23 is equipped with an instrument landing system.
Air traffic services are provided by Kirkenes Tower, callsign KIRKENES TWR, on 118.1 MHz. An ATIS broadcast is available on 118.025 MHz. Runway 23 offers an ILS approach.
Høybuktmoen was considered by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War as one of three air stations to be developed in Northern Norway, alongside Bardufoss and Banak, though wartime construction here was placed on hold owing to cost and the priority given to other airfields further south. Before the war, from 26 September 1940 three weekly services had operated from Trondheim to Tromsø, two of which continued to Kirkenes using a 16-passenger Junkers Ju-52, until the service ended on 20 March 1941 after most of the airline's pilots fled to the United Kingdom. Construction of the airport at Høybuktmoen finally began in 1961 and it opened on 4 May 1963. In its first month of operation the field recorded 88 movements by the two airlines then serving it, alongside 44 by the Royal Norwegian Air Force and 60 by the seaplane operator Varangfly, whose land routes were subsequently taken over by SAS and Finnair; Varangfly itself then converted entirely to seaplane operations. SAS introduced the 122-passenger Douglas DC-9 jet to Kirkenes in 1969, the same year that Helikopter Service began civilian helicopter flights from the airport. Passenger numbers rose from 20,638 in 1964 to 40,477 in 1970.
Kirkenes Airport continues to operate as a medium-sized airport under Avinor, providing scheduled airline services to and from the Kirkenes region.
