1973-2000

A major airport on the island of Saltholm and three so-called satellite airports in the metropolitan area were on the drawing board in the 1960s, when the future development of Copenhagen Airport was being assessed.

Based on these plans and the so-called ‘Pier Plan’ from 1947, Roskilde Airport was built in the early 1970s. On 1 April 1973, the airport opened as the first of the three planned satellite airports. As things turned out, the two other airports never materialised.

The vision was that Roskilde Airport would handle small and medium-sized aircraft and a share of Danish domestic traffic. The forecasts predicted a gradual increase year by year to reach 200,000 operations per year as early as 1985, the number the airport was designed for.

However, the reality soon turned out to be different from the visions. With the major oil crisis in 1974, fuel prices went through the roof, and flying became very expensive. Overall, the positive economic trends that dominated the 1960s came to an end.

Even after the 1980 closure of Skovlunde Airfield, which was located closer to Copenhagen, the number of operations did not reach half the forecast number. However, by the tenth anniversary in 1983, a domestic route had been established.

There were two flights a day from Roskilde to Stauning on the west coast of Jutland. A year later, the route was extended to Aberdeen in Scotland, but unfortunately its life was short. While the number of operations fell, the volume of cargo increased.

In 1985, eleven times as much cargo was carried as the year before. One of the reasons for this was a decision to keep the airport open at night. The growth continued year after year. In 1986, the duty-free shop opened, and a new weather observation system was commissioned in 1989. Both of these meant better service to the users of the airport.

The listed company Copenhagen Airports A/S took over the ownership of and operational responsibility for Roskilde Airport in October 1990. Until then, the airport had been owned by the Danish Government and operated by the Copenhagen Airports Authority, a public corporation under the Danish Ministry of Transport.

In 1997, the first international service out of Roskilde opened. The airline Concors (Latvian Air Service) started services to Latvia. This route no longer exists, however. The number of operations per year was just below 103,000 in 1997, which meant that, on average, an aircraft took off or landed every five minutes, every day, all year round.