Ambitious Vagar Airport

With a longer airstrip, a new terminal in 2014, a new CEO and an ambitious board, the national airport of the Faroe Islands is ready for new challenges.
 
The Faroese government has invested 365MDKK in lengthening the airstrip from 1250 meters to 1799 meters and in a new terminal that is expected to be finished in January 2014.

It is clear that we want to attract more business to Vagar Airport and therefore we have invested heavily in improving Vagar Airport. Our ambition is to increase both passenger and cargo to and from the Faroe Islands; and we expect to launch a new “growth” strategy in late 2012: the head of the board for Vagar Airport, Kitty May Ellefsen states.

Around 200.000 passengers used Vagar Airport in 2011. Today only Atlantic Airways uses the airport on a regular basis. The former Danish airline company Maersk Air and the Faroese airline Faroe Jet used to have regular traffic to and from the Faroe Islands. Atlantic Airways now operates three whole year routes and four seasonal routes to and from the Faroe Islands.

On the 10th of April, a new CEO, the 35 year old, Jákup Sverri Kass, has been appointed to Vagar Airport. He has formerly been the Director of Sales and Marketing for the Faroese ferry operator, Smyril Line and now comes from the position as Director of Sales and Marketing for Atlantic Airways.

Vagar Airport will experience some internal and external changes coming months. We need to look at the issue of attracting new business and better exploration of our current income foundation. Some of the focus areas will be to highlight the Faroe Islands as a tourist-destination by exploiting the charter- marked. Furthermore we want to play an active role in promoting air cargo as a more attractive means of freight-transport: says Jákup Sverri Kass.

For more info or comments; please feel free to contact:
Jákup Sverri Kass, CEO on jsk@fae.fo or mobile number +298 212500

Additional info:

1. Vagar Airport Ltd is responsible for conducting all operational activities at Vagar Airport, the Faroe Islands’ only airport.

2. Vagar Airport was originally a military installation, built during World War II. In the early 1960s the need and popular demand in the Faroes for civil aviation grew to the point of making a modernization of the runway a necessity to facilitate passenger traffic.

3. Vagar Airport became operational for civil aviation in 1963. During the early years only propeller aircraft were implemented. Since 1977 jet aircraft too have serviced the routes to the airport. The Danish Civil Aviation Administration administered Vagar Airport from 1963 to April 2007.