control tower, the airport road was not paved, aviation fuel tanks were not installed and there was no snow-removal equipment. From the opening, Flesland was served by three airlines. SAS flew three round trips to Oslo and once per day to Stavanger, Kristiansand and onwards to Aalborg in Denmark, with correspondence onwards to Copenhagen. Twice per week the Stavanger flight corresponded with services to London and Amsterdam. Vestlandske Luftfartsselskap flew services northwards along the coast to towns in Møre og Romsdal and to Trondheim. Iceland-based Loftleiðir received permission to operate a flight from Flesland via Reykjavík to New York twice per week. The airport had 70,000 passengers during its first twelve months of operations and exceeded 100,000 the following year. The temporary terminal was too small for this traffic and already during construction there was designed a larger terminal by Halfdan Grieg. By 1956 it was determined that the new terminal building would be too small. Also an expansion of the runway was discussed that year. SAS announced that they would take delivery of the intercontinental jetliner Douglas DC-8, which would require a longer runway than was available at both Flesland and Fornebu. The cost of extending the runway to would cost NOK 3.5 million in Bergen and NOK 30 million in Oslo. Helikopter Service established itself at Flesland in 1958, two years after the Stavanger-based company was established. The same year Vestlandske Luftfartsselskap filed for bankruptcy and Ålesund Airport, Vigra opened. Thus Braathens SAFE was awarded the concession for the route Stavanger–Bergen–Ålesund–Trondheim. Both SAS and Braathens were granted concession to operate the route from Kristiansand via Stavanger to Bergen. The same year a new terminal building opened. During a short period in 1959, there was a squadron stationed at Flesland. From 1962 there were regular detachment within NATO that were earmarked for Flesland. Every other year there were larger exercises with about a dozen aircraft and lasting for several weeks. Smaller training sessions were held every six weeks. The air station was upgraded in 1962 and consisted of a series of mountain halls, which could house more than twenty-five fighter aircraft. These also include barracks and commando facilities. Flesland was by NATO designated as a deployment site for nuclear warheads, which had prior to 1962 been designated to Sola Air Station. Components for nuclear bombs were most probably stored at Flesland, although the warheads were probably not stored there.