Poor visibility.

Afternoon.
Stuck in a queue, and looking out the car window over to runway 36
Poor visibility and snow in the air.

Now 3 hours later the landscape is covered in snow,again.
I am longing for spring today.

Early morning.

A glimpse from the airport on A quiet cold morning.

Morning has broken...

A house next to the runway.
An early morning flight.
And as you see MORE SNOW today.

X-mas is over.

Christmas is over.

Here is a glimpse of the plastic tree at the airport, ready to be put away for the next 11 months.

HYGGE

I thought  about HYGGE when I saw this.

Definition of HYGGE - a Scandinavian word for a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.

You will see this corner if you are travelling abroad and are walking through the international lounge / area at the airport.

Today is the DAY when most people are travelling home for xmas, or going away for the holiday time.

A very busy day!

Lighter days from now.

Today is the darkest and shortest winter day.
After today we will have longer periods of
daylight again and hopefully more sunshine too.

Still blowing.

The storm is still raging!
The extreme weather is named Aina and she is strong.
I am so pleased that I am not out in a plane or on a boat today.
Have a good weekend!

Thanks for the artistic work!

I just love the colourful and artistic work here on the very GREY part of the airport.

Thanks to the Portoguese artist, Diogo Machado, and also to Nuart and Avinor!

Please follow the link for further information.

http://www.urbanitewebzine.com/2017/09/11/az-rsml-disruption-04-add-fuel-stavanger-norway/

The English Queen has been here.

Seen on the floor at the airport.
I don´t know if she ever came back to our city, but I guess she has been busy and travelling more places than most of us will ever do.

Sola Airshow 2017

No rain today!
Perfect for the SOLA AIRSHOW this weekend!
What a great event!
I have seen and learned new things.
Lots of people inside, and lots of people watching outside from all around the airport.

Some more images from the Airshow taken by my new mobile you can see at #stavangerdailyphoto

A busy weekend ahead.

Just an image from my archive .....
British Airways has direct daily flights from London.

This weekend there will be plenty of planes at the airport.
More to come......

(PS. I just read in the newspaper, June 21. that BA will stop flying to Stavanger.
Sad news.)

Air traffic down 6,4 %

The number of planes to and from Stavanger Airport is still going down dramatically!

There are several reasons for that, not only that people have become more concerned about the environment. More meetings are held without travelling, and companies in the area are cutting down on travel expenses as well as the number of employees

More and more people have to commute to find good work elsewhere.
The oil business is no longer what it used to be.

So those who are commuting, are at least keeping people in work at the airport.
Sad that several direct routes out to European cities have stopped.

BA 744 from London

BA 744 from London arriving at Stavanger airport.

Rain

Rain.
Just the way it is.

WIND + SAND

Yesterday evening was cold, sunny and quite windy.

I drove on the road between the beach and the airport, and as so many times before the road was covered with sand.
One of the airport busses struggled ( I just hope the passengers and their luggage made it to the airport on time.)
I noticed the tow truck was there on my way back. (when I drove back.)

It is actually even worse when it is dark, then people who can't manage to walk on the pavement, walk out on the road.

Helicopter traffic.

Living here on the coast of Norway I see and hear helicopters nearly every single day.

Not since 1978 have we had a disaster like the one that happened on Friday, when 13 people lost their lives! 

Newspapers, radio and TV have been covering the tragedy where a Super Puma EC225 crashed just outside Bergen, on it's way from the "Gullfaks B" platform.

The loss for family, friends and colleagues is devastating! 

For Statoil and other oil companies, safety has been, and will be, number one.

All helicopters of the same type are grounded until they have found answers to why this happened.

In 2015 there were more than 600.000 passengers travelling to and from platforms here in Norway.

A sad day today.

Around lunch time today, a helicopter from one of the oil platforms, on it's way back to the mainland suddenly exploded, and 13 people were missing.
One British, one Italian, the 11 others were all Norwegians. It happened just outside Bergen.
People living nearby heard and witnessed what was going on. Rescue teams arrived quickly, they have found 11 bodies so far.

It is many years since there has been an accident like this involving a helicopter here in Norway.
Most of us who live in Norway know someone working offshore.....

I passed the company building tonight, and they were flying the Norwegian flag at half mast after this tragic incident.

The Heliport.

This is the place where there are people going to or from work at the offshore oil rigs.
A busy place, and sometimes people are stuck here for hours because of bad weather and no helicopters are up in the air.
Some families have their beloved ones out for weeks at a time, but then again they are back for weeks  too, so I guess it is a very special work situation, but most people get used to it.

SANDER, the judo player.

Today I met SANDER KNUTSEN.

He is a 17 year old sportsman from Sandnes, who is playing JUDO for the Norwegian Judo Federation.

Tomorrow he will be representing Norway at the ESTONIAN OPEN at TARTU.

It was very nice meeting you Sander!
I hope you do well, and also have a really good time and perhaps find new friends at the tournament this weekend.

I had to smile when you said that you played football for some years, but when you finished your career as a football player, you were as good as when you started!  It showed your good sense of humour!


Best of luck, Sander!

Runway 29

Runway 29