Domestic Airport Closer To Leaving Reykjavík

MPs from numerous parties – including the coalition-leading Progressives – have signed on with a proposal to move the domestic airport from Reykjavík to Keflavík.

The proposal is backed by MPs from every parliamentary party except the Independence Party and the Left-Greens. It calls upon the Interior Minister to examine and assess the cost of moving the airport to Keflavík as well as development and job opportunities that could arise in the wake of the move, especially in Suðurnes, where the unemployment rate has long been highest.

Results from the Interior Ministry would then be expected to be submitted to parliament in 2016.

All of the MPs hail from either the capital area or the South Iceland district, where Suðurnes is located. This may be due to regional differences of opinion over the domestic airport’s location: conventional wisdom states that Icelanders in Reykjavík want the airport to move, on account of the noise of planes flying lower over the city, while Icelanders from the countryside want it to stay where it is, on account of the convenience of disembarking in downtown Reykjavík.

However, a poll conducted in 2013 by Market and Media Research showed that 72% of respondents – all of whom hailed from the capital area – want the airport to stay where it is.