Keflavík Airport, International airport in Keflavík, Iceland
Keflavík Airport is an air travel hub on the Reykjanes peninsula with two parallel runways measuring 3050 meters each and a terminal divided into sections A, C, and D. The facility spreads across a wide area with hangars, maintenance zones, and parking lots surrounded by open volcanic plains.
The facility was built by United States military forces in 1943 during World War II as a military base and originally consisted of two separate airfields named Patterson Field and Meeks Field. After the war ended, the base remained under American use until Iceland opened it for civilian traffic in the 1980s.
The terminal bears the name of Leif Erikson, the Norse explorer who reached North America centuries before Columbus, representing Iceland's maritime heritage. This connection to seafaring history appears in murals and sculptures that visitors can find throughout the arrival and departure areas.
The terminal sits roughly 50 kilometers southwest of Reykjavík, reachable via a highway that runs directly to the capital. Buses, rental cars, and taxis are available around the clock, and the journey takes 40 to 50 minutes depending on traffic.
The runways were designed to serve as an emergency landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle if needed, a capability shared by only a handful of locations worldwide. This provision dates back to the American space program and remained active until the shuttle fleet was retired in 2011.
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