Repair and maintenance work carried out on the airport runway at Vagar over the past two years is about to be completed, with little to no air traffic disruptions caused in the process.
According to Vagar Airport, new pavement has been laid on the runway, taxiway and apron with all work completed except for the turn pads, which are being extended, and the airfield lights, which are being replaced for higher energy efficiency.
Part of the tarmac work was routine surface renewal maintenance whereas some sections of the runway needed more thorough repairs. The type of pavement used is flexible or, more precisely, hot-mix asphalt produced at Sund near Tórshavn.
The 100 million DKK (13.4M EUR) maintenance project is expected completed within one-and-a-half to two months. It dovetails with a larger 500M DKK (67M EUR) extension project that will see the terminal building renovated and expanded as well as having a new parking lot added plus ground developed for a new aircraft hangar.
“Pavement repair and maintenance has been carried out during night hours to minimize air traffic disruptions,” a Vagar Airport project manager noted.
“One of the challenges related to runway pavement work has to do with timing in connection with the manufacturing of hot-mix asphalt. The logistics in this case has involved making the decision by 2pm, on a daily basis for months on end, on whether to proceed with the next production batch of 1,000 tonnes of fresh HMA for the coming night’s tarmacking. You can only lay the asphalt while it’s still hot and it has to be done in time to become hardened and safe for airport use before the day’s runway traffic commences.”