Flesland in the city and municipality of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. Opened in 1955, it is the second-busiest airport in Norway, with 6,306,623 passengers in 2018. Flesland is operated by the state-owned Avinor. Until 1999 Flesland Air Station of the Norwegian Air Force was co-located at the airport.
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Norwegian Air Shuttle and Widerøe are the largest airlines operating at the airport. The route to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen is among the busiest in Europe. A substantial traffic is generated by CHC Helikopter Service and Bristow Norway to offshore oil platforms in the North Sea.The first aircraft to land at the airport was a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter of the air force on 18 June 1954. At the time 800 meters (2,600 ft) of the runway was completed. Several in the year the paved section was extended to 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) and several Douglas DC-3 aircraft landed. The first revenue flight was a chartered carried out by Braathens SAFE for SK Brann, who flew to Oslo to play a football match. The military officially took the airport into use on 14 September 1954.The official civilian opening took place on 2 October 1955. By then the airport had a temporary terminal and control tower, the airport road was not paved, aviation fuel tanks were not installed and there was no snow-removal equipment
Originally Bergen was served by water aerodromes at Flatøy, Sandviken, and Herdla. Financing of Flesland was largely secured through NATO funds and the airport opened on 2 October 1955. Until the 1980s, Bergen was the Norwegian airport used for SAS' intercontinental flights to New York. New terminals were opened in 1988 and in August 2017. The Bergen Light Rail was extended to the airport and opened in April 2017.
