Country Wisdom Saved The Reykjavík Airport

When treetops closed the city airport’s runways, help came from Eskifjörður

Iceland is not known for its abundance of trees. An old quip goes that if you get lost in an Icelandic forest, you should simply stand up. Yet there are a few proper forests here and there, planted by forestry associations in the twentieth century.

In Reykjavík, there’s a small forest on Öskjuhlíð, the hill most famous for undergirding Perlan, a multipurpose building which hosts a viewing platform, a rotating restaurant, a museum, a lighthouse, and its original purpose: hot water tanks. As anyone standing on Perlan could tell you, to the west lies Reykjavík City Airport. It serves domestic and Greenland flights as well as air ambulances, bringing the sick from the countryside.

Should it stay or should it go?

Over the years the airport has been a bitterly fought over bone. Broadly speaking, people from Reykjavík want to move it somewhere else, somewhere near Hafnarfjörður for example. These latté-sipping effetes, having studied in densely populated European capitals, want the airport replaced with blocks of affordable flats, cycle lanes, schools, kindergartens, galleries and chic bars serving natural wines.

Angry at the mere suggestion, and used to speaking loudly so they may be heard across fields and from the decks of passing ships, countryside people won’t hear of closing the airport. Landing in Reykjavík is not only convenient; it is necessary for life in the countryside. The airport is close to Landspítali, the largest and best-equipped hospital in Iceland. Lengthening the journey would inevitably spell death in cases where minutes matter.

“Landing in Reykjavík is not only convenient; it is necessary for life in the countryside. The airport is close to Landspítali, the largest and best-equipped hospital in Iceland.”

The two sides have been at it for so long now that the subject elicits a collective groan. The endless discussion is now at a low ebb. Since 2021, some of the wind has been taken out of the sails of the latté-sippers, as the leading site for a replacement airport, Hvassahraun, appears to be at risk from the same volcanic activity that’s been menacing Grindavík.

Treetops? More like tree stops

So the airport stays for now. Planes regularly descend over central Reykjavík, over Austurvöllur, coming in for a landing on its north-south runway. The approaches to its east-west runway, however, used to go over the Öskjuhlíð forest, planted with much care in the latter part of the 20th century. By early 2025 these trees were causing trouble.

They had grown too tall. It appears that the city of Reykjavík, which was responsible for ensuring that they didn’t block the flight approach to the airport, weren’t willing to face up to what this task would mean in practice: the felling of a huge number of trees and the destruction of a beautiful section of forest. They delayed and negotiated with Isavia, the state-owned company that runs all Icelandic airports, and with the Icelandic Transport Authority.

Einar Þorsteinsson, mayor of Reykjavík, questioned the necessity of cutting such a large number, saying in an interview in January that they were willing to cut specific tall trees, saying about the new measurements – which had been done on a new basis – that “It came to light that we need to cut down a few more trees. This we’re ready to do right away. But they insist on felling 1,400 trees, which would create an ugly gash in that beautiful green space. We want to ensure these sorts of decisions are made on the correct basis.”

Finally on February 8, the Icelandic Transport Authority closed the east-west runway. The trees needed to go, and that was that. It was no longer safe for air passengers. In its directive they stated that: “Isavia’s measurements from last October confirm that vegetation has grown into Reykjavík Airport’s obstacle limitation surface” and that “neither Isavia nor the Icelandic Transport Authority have been able to get the obstacles cleared [by Reykjavík City].”

Bad news indeed, as both runways were usually in frequent use; unfavourable crosswinds could make landings on the north-south runway treacherous. Forced to act, Reykjavík City solicited quotes for the tree felling and in they came: 142 million ISK from one gardening company, 468 million ISK from another and then, inexplicably, a quote for 19.7 million ISK from Tandrabretti, a business in Eskifjörður, East Iceland.

Eastfjords to the rescue

Could they deliver at that price? The city had estimated the cost at 360 million ISK. Googling Tandrabretti you’d find that they produced shipping pallets. Before the invitation to tender, Einar Birgir Kristjansson, CEO of Tandrabretti, had posted on Facebook, “Tandrabretti is the only company in Iceland that cuts down forests with so-called machine logging and these numbers don’t come from us, as we haven’t even been asked.” They began work on 13 March with these purpose-built machines. On 27 March, the runway was once again open. What had seemed complex and costly to the office workers in Reykjavík had proved simple on the ground.

The wood was loaded onto a truck and dumped, 15-minutes’ drive away, in Hafnarfjörður harbour. It was a handsome pile of logs. The mayor of Hafnarfjörður even came down to have his picture taken next to them, talking up the economic possibilities of wood shipment. Eventually a ship ferried the wood back to Eskifjörður and the logs were stacked in the harbourfront like a prize of war, ready to be sorted and turned into pallets and wood pellets for burning.

This was a considerable accomplishment. With the city slickers incapable of keeping the runway open, the countryside had to come all the way to Reykjavík and do it for them. In the process they’d earned a fair wage, saved the Reykjavík taxpayers a lot of money and come home with a large batch of wood, to do with as they pleased.

Freyr Thorvaldsson also writes personal essays, book reviews and poetry at freyr.substack.com.

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