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Kalmar Airport, branded Kalmar Öland Airport, lies a few kilometres west of the city of Kalmar in south-eastern Sweden, close to the E22 road. Built on the site of the former Kalmar Wing (F 12) air base, it is now a civil regional airport handling scheduled and charter services alongside flying club and general aviation activity. Its long paved runway with ILS makes it a straightforward and interesting destination for VFR pilots exploring the Kalmar Sound and Öland area.
Kalmar Airport (ICAO: ESMQ, IATA: KLR), marketed since 2013 as Kalmar Öland Airport, is a regional airport in south-eastern Sweden serving the city of Kalmar and the island of Öland. It occupies the site of the former Kalmar Wing (F 12), a Swedish Air Force fighter base, and today combines scheduled and charter airline traffic with flying club, gliding and general aviation activity. It is owned by Kalmar Municipality and operated through the company Kalmar Airport AB, making it a place of some aviation heritage as well as a practical VFR destination.
The airfield lies about 4 to 5 kilometres west of Kalmar city centre, immediately alongside the E22 road, at coordinates 56.6856N, 16.2875E and an elevation of 13 feet.
Kalmar has two paved, lit runways. The main runway, 16/34, is a hard-surfaced strip with declared lengths of 7,581 feet in the 16 direction, which is equipped with an ILS, and 6,701 feet in the 34 direction. A shorter crosswind runway, 05/23, is also hard-surfaced and lit, with declared lengths of 2,545 feet on 05 and 2,619 feet on 23.
The tower callsign is Kalmar Tower, operating on 130.8 MHz. An ILS is available for approaches to runway 16.
The airfield sits immediately next to the E22 trunk road on the western edge of Kalmar, a useful line feature for pilots inbound from the city or from along the coast.
The airfield has its origins in the Kalmar Wing (F 12) of the Swedish Air Force, formed on 1 July 1942 at Stora Törneby farm west of Kalmar, on land the city had acquired in 1937 with a future airport in mind. The state took over the property without cost after the Air Force expressed interest in 1940, and further land was purchased from neighbouring farms. When the wing was reorganised as a fighter wing in 1947, the first permanent paved runway was built, entering use in 1948. Civil traffic began on 14 April 1957, when runway 05-23 opened on a trial basis and Linjeflyg started its first scheduled route, Stockholm to Kalmar. In November 1961 the Swedish government decided that military wing airfields could be used for civil traffic, making Kalmar the first such airfield in Sweden to be used for both military and civil flying. In spring 1975 the Riksdag decided to disband the F 11 (Nyköping) and F 12 (Kalmar) wing administrations; at that time the F 12 wing held about 400 hectares of land at Kalmar, plus a roughly 275-hectare ground manoeuvre area some 30 kilometres south-west of the city and a 275-hectare leased target range on Öland. The wing then had two runways, one aligned north-west to south-east at 2,300 metres and one north-east to south-west at 2,000 metres, and employed around 370 staff plus some 400 conscripts. F 12 was disbanded on 30 June 1980, after which the remaining activity became a detachment of the Blekinge Wing (F 17); the aircraft workshop and the Weather School (Väderskolan) remained on site. Following the 1982 defence decision, the Weather School moved to F 5 from 1 January 1983, and the aircraft workshop and other remaining wing activity closed entirely. The Swedish Civil Aviation Administration (Luftfartsverket) then took over the airfield, which has since been used solely for civil aviation. A new terminal opened in August 1984 on the former F 12 site. On 1 January 2007 Kalmar Municipality took over operation of the airport, continuing to run it through Kalmar Airport AB, and since February 2013 the operator has marketed the field as Kalmar Öland Airport. On 25 February 2021 the airport recorded a Swedish February heat record of +17.0 degrees Celsius. Kalmar Flygklubb, a local flying club with its own flying school, was founded here in 1945, and Kalmar Segelflygklubb, a gliding club, has been based at the field since the mid-1940s.
Kalmar Airport continues to handle scheduled and charter airline traffic alongside general aviation. Scandinavian Airlines serves Stockholm-Arlanda, and Air Dolomiti has operated seasonal service to Frankfurt on behalf of Lufthansa in the summer months; TUI fly Nordic has run seasonal charter flights to destinations such as Gran Canaria and Rhodes. The airfield remains home to Kalmar Flygklubb, which runs a flying school, and to Kalmar Segelflygklubb for gliding, and it also sees business, air taxi and private flying.
