During 2022, Svalbard saw a massive comeback of travellers: on the busiest days, the small terminal building at Longyearbyen airport was dangerously overcrowded, so much so that ground staff struggled to cope with the number of charter airplanes arriving. For 2023, the airport operator Avinor has chosen to limit the number of aircraft able to use Longyearbyen to just six per day. In order to travel to Svalbard, the vast majority of people must fly to Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost airport with regularly scheduled flights. In the summer of 2022, twice as many charter flights landed at Longyearbyen than in the last ‘normal’ year of travel (2019): the increase was mainly needed to fly passengers to board the growing number of cruise ships that depart Longyearbyen. The airport’s small size limits the ability for authorities to conduct controls on people or goods: identification checks for passenger arrivals are often done in Oslo or Tromsø, prior to departure. While investment is planned to improve the runway, there are no immediate plans to expand Svalbard’s airport. Read more on Forbes.com
