Billund Airport

Billund Airport (Danish: Billund Lufthavn) (IATA: BLL, ICAO: EKBI) is an airport in Denmark. Located 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) northeast[2] of Billund, it serves as one of the country's busiest air cargo centres, as well as a charter airline destination. Most major European airports are connected to Billund via multiple daily scheduled flights. Nearby Legoland Billund park is the largest tourist attraction in Denmark outside Copenhagen.

Billund Airport

Billund Lufthavn
Summary
Airport typePublic
OperatorBillund Lufthavn A/S
ServesSouthern Denmark
LocationBillund Municipality, Denmark
Opened1 November 1964 (1964-11-01)
Hub forSun-Air of Scandinavia
(on behalf of British Airways), Maersk Air Cargo
Focus city forRyanair[1]
Elevation AMSL247 ft / 75 m
Coordinates55°44′25″N 009°09′07″E
Websitebll.dk
Map
BLL is located in Denmark
BLL
BLL
Location in Denmark
Runways
Direction Length Surface
m ft
09/27 3,100 10,172 Asphalt
Statistics (2019)
Passengers3,739,267 Increase6.6%
Source: AIP[2]

History

Billund Airport had its beginning in 1961 when the son of the founder of the Lego Group, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, established a private 800-meter long runway and hangar north of his factory in Billund. With Christiansen as a key driver, more of the neighbouring municipalities were included in the group of owners, and it was planned that the airport should be expanded to a regular public airport.

The construction of the new airport was carried out during 1964 and the airport opened on 1 November, with one runway at 1660 meters in length and 45 meters width, a small platform where aircraft could be served, and a control tower. Hans Erik Christensen, the former chief pilot at Lego, became director, and the passengers were handled in Lego's hangar until the first terminal building was opened in the spring of 1966. The airport was continuously expanded in the following years, with new facilities, terminal buildings, lounge, tax-free area, and hangars where LC Johansen's studio often participated as an architect (today called Johannsen Architects), while other work was carried out by the airport's own studio.

In 1997, they had an architectural competition for a new 430,000 ft² (40,000 m2) passenger terminal, designed to serve 3.5 million passengers a year, north of the original airport. KHR Architects won the assignment and completed the construction in co-operation with COWI, and at the end of May 2002 the new passenger terminal was put to use, as the first phase of the future expansion, which is scheduled to take place north of the start and runway, while air cargo services, business and private aviation will continue to be served from the existing buildings south of the runway. In connection with this expansion, the largest since the beginning of the airport, it was with effect from 1 January 1997 turned into a joint-stock company, Billund Airport A/S, with the former members Vejle County and municipalities Vejle, Kolding, Grindsted, Billund, and Give as shareholders.

In 2007, Vejle County was abolished after a municipality reform. It's 50% shareholding was then distributed among municipalities in the county leading to the following ownership:[3]

Ownership distribution of Billund Airport
OwnerPercentage of shares
Vejle Municipality34.3%
Kolding Municipality25.9%
Billund Municipality15%
Horsens Municipality10.7%
Fredericia Municipality6.9%
Hedensted Municipality6.1%
Ikaste-Brande Municipality1%
Billund Airport0.1%[4]

In 2008, the entire runway was renovated and paved, and a new taxiway was built, nicknamed "Mike". This major task only took 14 hours. The runway was closed overnight between the hours 23:00 and 06:00. This did not prevent a Boeing 737-800 from Ryanair landing at one end of the runway, while they worked at the other end. The same year was also a record year for the airport. 2,546,856 passengers passed through the terminals, an increase of 12.7 percent compared with 2007.

From mid-2009, the airport was served by nine airlines flying regular flight service, of which KLM had the busiest route with over 200,000 annual passengers to Amsterdam Schiphol. In 2011, Ryanair announced that Billund Airport with effect from 25 March 2012 would be the base for two Boeing 737 aircraft. At the same time, Ryanair published five new routes, so that, from the summer of 2012, they would fly to 19 destinations.

In 2014, Lego produced a limited Lego Architecture set of Billund Airport, which could only be bought in the departure hall's Lego store. In 2018, a new version of this set was released, again in limited quantities.[5]

A new terminal was slated to open in the fall of 2019.[6] It cost more than 100 million Danish kroner.

Capabilities

The airport handles an average of more than three million passengers a year, and millions of pounds of cargo. The airport's main runway can handle airliners as large as the Boeing 747, although most passengers arrive on smaller aeroplanes, such as ATR-72s, Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s. Boeing 747 activity at this airport is almost exclusively limited to cargo flights.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights to and from Billund:[7]

AirlinesDestinations
Air France Paris–Charles de Gaulle
Air Greenland Seasonal: Kangerlussuaq[8]
airBaltic Riga
Seasonal: Gran Canaria (begins 1 December 2023),[9] Tallinn (begins 2 May 2024)[10]
Atlantic Airways Vágar
Seasonal charter: Ioannina[11]
Austrian Airlines Seasonal: Vienna[12]
British Airways Düsseldorf (resumes 6 November 2023),[13] Gothenburg,[14] London–City, London–Heathrow, Manchester
Brussels Airlines Seasonal: Brussels[15]
DAT Seasonal: Bornholm
European Air Charter Seasonal charter: Burgas[16]
Finnair Seasonal: Helsinki[17]
Icelandair Seasonal: Reykjavik–Keflavík
KLM Amsterdam
LOT Polish Airlines Warsaw–Chopin
Lufthansa Frankfurt, Munich[18]
Norwegian Air Shuttle[19] Oslo
Seasonal: Bergen[20]
Pegasus Airlines Antalya
Play Seasonal: Reykjavik–Keflavík
Ryanair Alicante, Barcelona,[21] Bergamo, Budapest, Gdańsk,[22] Kraków,[22] London–Stansted, Málaga, Malta, Manchester, Vienna
Seasonal: Alghero,[23] Bari,[24] Berlin,[25][26] Birmingham, Bologna, Charleroi, Dublin,[27] Edinburgh, Ibiza,[28] Madrid,[28] Palma de Mallorca, Pisa, Porto,[28][29] Poznań, Trapani,[24] Treviso,[30] Turin, Valencia,[31] Vilnius,[32][33] Wrocław
Scandinavian Airlines Oslo, Stockholm–Arlanda
Seasonal charter: Gran Canaria[34]
Sunclass Airlines[35] Seasonal charter: Antalya, Chania, Gran Canaria, Heraklion, Larnaca, Palma de Mallorca, Rhodes, Tenerife–South
SunExpress Seasonal: Antalya
Swiss International Air Lines Seasonal: Zurich[36]
Turkish Airlines Istanbul
Vueling Barcelona,
Seasonal: Málaga,[21] Palma de Mallorca
Widerøe Bergen
Wizz Air Bucharest–Otopeni, Iași

The following airlines operates regular cargo routes to and from Billund

AirlinesDestinations
ASL Airlines Cologne[37]
Bluebird Nordic Keflavik, Cologne[37]
DHL Leipzig[37]
Maersk Air Cargo Hangzhou[37]
Turkish Cargo Istanbul[37]

Statistics
Check-in hall
Annual passenger traffic at BLL airport. See Wikidata query.

Ground transport

The road distance is to Billund 3 kilometres (2 mi), to Vejle 28 kilometres (17 mi), to Kolding 41 kilometres (25 mi), to Esbjerg 61 kilometres (38 mi) and to Aarhus 98 kilometres (61 mi). There are airport buses to Horsens, Skanderborg and Aarhus. Eight additional bus services operate from the airport. There are six parking zones named after countries of the world, USA, Australia, Kenya, Spain, Egypt and Greenland. Three of the zones are connected by a shuttle bus, the other three being within walking distance.

See also

References
  1. "Ryanair Launches New Billund Base & Summer '22 Schedule". ryanair.com. 10 November 2021.
  2. "EKBI – Billund" (PDF). AIP Denmark. Copenhagen: Trafikstyrelsen/Danish Transport Authority. 28 June 2012. part AD 2 – EKBI. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 May 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
  3. "Facts". Billund Airport. Billund Airport. Retrieved 2 July 2023.
  4. Own shares
  5. "New version of Billund Airport now available". Brickset.com. 26 May 2018.
  6. "Nyheder 24 timer i døgnet - seneste nyt - jp - jyllands-posten.dk".
  7. billund-airport.com - Timetables Archived 11 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 26 February 2017
  8. "Air Greenland opretter en rute til Billund Lufthavn | Billund Lufthavn".
  9. "AirBaltic to Base Aircraft in the Canary Islands for Winter". 14 June 2023.
  10. Orban, André (29 August 2023). "airBaltic announces 11 new routes in Summer 2024". Aviation24.
  11. "Apollo Rejser - Bestil ferie-rejser til hele verden på apollorejser.dk".
  12. "Austrian Airlines opens seven new destinations next summer". Austrian Airways. 9 November 2022. Retrieved 16 April 2023.
  13. "SUN-AIR åbner rute mellem Billund og Düsseldorf". 26 September 2023.
  14. "SUN-AIR - Routemap". Archived from the original on 9 February 2023. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  15. "Brussels Airlines increases capacity by Summer 2023, signs wet-lease agreement with CityJet and hires new staff". 7 December 2022.
  16. "Flight schedule :: Fly Bulgarien".
  17. "Flights to Billund". Finnair. 22 January 2023. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  18. "Lufthansa: Book now for the summer". 14 December 2021.
  19. "Route map". norwegian.com.
  20. "Norwegian Adds Seasonal Routes from Bergen / Stavanger in NS22".
  21. "Billund adds five routes and a new airline". anna.aero. 22 February 2021.
  22. "Ryanair Launches 3 New Winter Routes From Billund". 10 July 2020.
  23. "Tre nye Ryanair-ruter fra Danmark". 21 December 2022.
  24. "Ryanair apre il Trapani – Billund. Piu' voli su Bologna e Pisa". 10 November 2021.
  25. "Atter Berlin-rute fra Vestdanmark". 8 December 2022.
  26. https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230918-frnw23
  27. https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/ryanair/cuts-17-routes-and-19-aircraft-from-dublin-airport-over-45-increase-in-airport-costs/
  28. "Ryanair åbner seks nye ruter fra Billund i 2022". 10 November 2021.
  29. https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230918-frnw23
  30. "Ryanair Announces New Base at Venice Treviso, 2 Based Aircraft, $200m Investment and 18 New Routes | Ryanair's Corporate Website". 4 December 2020.
  31. "Tre nye Ryanair-ruter fra Danmark til Spanien". 17 November 2022.
  32. ""Ryanair" iš Vilniaus skraidins į Danijos Bilundą". April 2021.
  33. https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/230918-frnw23
  34. "Flight". apollorejser.dk.
  35. "Flight". spies.dk.
  36. "Newsroom : SWISS to expand schedules from mid-summer onwards". 25 February 2021.
  37. "Cargo".

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