AIRPORTS AND AIR NAVIGATION

REPAIRED HELSINKI-VANTAA RUNWAY 1 BACK IN SERVICE

A thorough overhaul of Helsinki-Vantaa’s runway 1 was completed in 2005. The repairs lasted from early spring to late autumn, when the runway was closed. It was reopened to air traffic on October 31st. The exceptional takeoff and landing paths imposed during the overhaul returned to normal thereafter, and all three runways were back working as usual.

The CAA’s construction manager, Reijo Tasanen, said the six month long repairs were an extensive undertaking, which involved the resurfacing of Runway 1 and the replacement of the instrument landing (ILS) equipment and all the runway lighting. At the same time, two new taxi-ways were built to link to the runway along with ten new aircraft parking places.

It took 150 000 tonnes of asphalt to surface the runway and taxi-ways, whilst 1 200 lights were renewed. The overall cost of the final renovation work came to about 18 million euros; refurbishing the runway cost 10.5 million euros; the new taxi-ways 3 million and the aircraft parking areas 4.5 million euros.

Originally built during the Olympics year of 1952, the runway has since been extended several times as needed. It is now 3 440 metres long and the last time it was completely renovated was 18 years ago.

“The renovation of Runway 1 and the addition of the two new taxi-ways have improved the usage and capacity of all the runways. Now that the work has been done traffic flows more smoothly,” Mr Tasanen said.

Complete renovation work is continuing with resurfacing and new lighting for the apron and taxi-way network.