Flesland is Norway's second busiest airport, about 18 kilometres south of the city centre. It opened on 2 October 1955, and getting it built was an engineering headache. Several hills had to be blasted away to create a flat enough area for the runway, and most of the money came from NATO, not Norway.
The airport has an unexpected claim to fame. In the early 1960s, when SAS took delivery of its first DC-8 jets for transatlantic flights, the runway at Fornebu in Oslo was too short to handle them. So Flesland became Norway's main intercontinental airport, with direct flights to New York. For a few years, if you wanted to fly from Norway to America, you flew from Bergen, not the capital.
A new terminal opened in 2017, raising capacity to 10 million passengers a year. The airport is connected to the city centre by Bybanen, the light rail, which takes about 45 minutes. There are also airport buses and taxis. Most rental car companies have desks in the terminal.
If you are starting or ending a road trip in western Norway, Flesland is the logical base. It is closer to the fjords than Oslo, and you avoid the long drive across the mountains.
The airport has an unexpected claim to fame. In the early 1960s, when SAS took delivery of its first DC-8 jets for transatlantic flights, the runway at Fornebu in Oslo was too short to handle them. So Flesland became Norway's main intercontinental airport, with direct flights to New York. For a few years, if you wanted to fly from Norway to America, you flew from Bergen, not the capital.
A new terminal opened in 2017, raising capacity to 10 million passengers a year. The airport is connected to the city centre by Bybanen, the light rail, which takes about 45 minutes. There are also airport buses and taxis. Most rental car companies have desks in the terminal.
If you are starting or ending a road trip in western Norway, Flesland is the logical base. It is closer to the fjords than Oslo, and you avoid the long drive across the mountains.