The Swedish are renowned for their stylish yet functional designs. At the nation’s largest airport, Arlanda, this ‘form and function’ hasn’t always been apparent, but over recent years the facility has been gradually improved and is now a model of efficiency, as Jessica Bannister-Pearce discovered.
Post-war, the Swedish government saw a need to build a new airport away from what was then the gateway to Stockholm, Bromma Airport. In 1946, a site was chosen near Lake Halmsjön, 25 miles (40km) to the north of the capital and equidistant from Sweden’s fourth largest city, Uppsala, to the north. But construction had begun during an economic turndown and, in 1952, the plans had to be scaled back to include just a single concrete runway. Opening in 1954, pilot Georg Lindow had the honour of completing the first commercial flight from Bromma to Halmsjön. On his arrival, Lindow was deeply unhappy with the landing strip, and is quoted as saying: “Nowhere in the world have I seen a newly constructed runway that has been designed as stupidly as the Halmsjön one.” Its unusual ‘corkscrew’ shape earned it the nickname ‘The Hump’. It wasn’t popular with pilots and work on a second airstrip was soon started.
As const…
