Bergen Airport (; ), alternatively Bergen Flesland Airport or simply Flesland Airport, is an international airport located at Flesland in the city and municipality of Bergen, Vestland, Norway. Opened in 1955, it is the second-busiest airport in Norway, with 6,306,623 passengers in 2018. Flesland is operated by the state-owned Avinor. Until 1999 Flesland Air Station of the Norwegian Air Force was co-located at the airport. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Norwegian Air Shuttle and Widerøe are the largest airlines operating at the airport. The route to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen is among the busiest in Europe. A substantial traffic is generated by CHC Helikopter Service and Bristow Norway to offshore oil platforms in the North Sea. Originally Bergen was served by water aerodromes at Flatøy, Sandviken, and Herdla. Financing of Flesland was largely secured through NATO funds and the airport opened on 2 October 1955. Until the 1980s, Bergen was the Norwegian airport used for SAS' intercontinental flights to New York. New terminals were opened in 1988 and in August 2017. The Bergen Light Rail was extended to the airport and opened in April 2017. History Construction The first aircraft to operate in Bergen was a demonstration flight by Carl Gustav Cederström on 25 September 1911. The first airport in the Bergen area was Flatøy Air Station, built by the Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service on the island of Flatøy. The water aerodrome was established in 1919, it remained in use until 1940. Norway's first scheduled airline service was started by Det Norske Luftfartsrederi between Bergen, Haugesund and Stavanger in 1920, and operated out of Bergen Airport, Sandviken, a water aerodrome just north of the city center. The aerodrome became the Bergen base for both Norwegian Air Lines and Vestlandske Luftfartsselskap. Planning of an airport with an airstrip took place during the 1930s. A series of public institutions made various reports between 1931 and 1938, which largely recommended Flesland as a location, which was at the time located in the then independent municipality of Fana. The main alternative was Herdla, an island northernmost in Askøy, which was first recommended in 1933. The main disadvantage with Flesland was the topography and that it would not be possible to build longer runways than , respectively. A municipal committee recommended therefore in 1938 that Herdla be chosen, to be jointly financed by the state and the municipality After the German occupation of Norway, the Wehrmacht started