<h2 class="blog-hed2 pb-lg-4 pb-3 text-lg-center">History Keflavik International Airport</h2>
<p class="blog-para">Originally, the airport was built by the United States military during World War II, as a replacement for a small British landing strip at Gar&eth;ur to the north.</p>
<p class="blog-para">It consisted of two separate two-runway airfields, built simultaneously just 4 km apart. Patterson Field in the south-east opened in 1942 despite being partly incomplete. It was named after a young pilot who died in Iceland. Meeks Field to the north-west opened on 23 March 1943. It was named after another young pilot, George Meeks, who died on the Reykjav&iacute;k airfield. Patterson Field was closed after the war, but Meeks Field and the adjoining structures were returned to Iceland's control and were renamed Naval Air Station Keflavik, for the nearby town of Keflav&iacute;k.</p>
<p class="blog-para">In 1951, the U.S. military returned to the airport under a defence agreement between Iceland and the U.S. signed on 5 May 1951.</p>
<p class="blog-para">With the reestablishment of the military air base at Keflav&iacute;k during the 1950s, the air terminal found itself in the middle of a secure military zone. Travelers had to pass through military check points to reach their flights, until 1987, when the civilian terminal was relocated.</p>
<p class="blog-para">The presence of foreign military forces in Iceland under the NATO-sponsored Iceland&ndash;U.S. Defense Agreement of 1951 was controversial in Iceland, which had no indigenous military forces other than the Icelandic Coast Guard.[7] During the 1960s and 1970s, rallies were held to protest the U.S. military presence in Iceland (and in particular at Keflav&iacute;k), and every year protesters walked the 50-kilometre (30 mi) road from Reykjav&iacute;k to Keflav&iacute;k and chanted "&Iacute;sland &uacute;r NATO, herinn burt" (literally: Iceland out of NATO, the military away). The protests were not effective.</p>
<p class="blog-para">The two 3,000-metre-long (10,000 ft) and 60-metre-wide (200 ft) runways were large enough to support NASA's Space Shuttle as well as the Antonov An-225. On 29 June 1999, Concorde G-BOAA flew from Heathrow Airport to Reykjav&iacute;k (Keflavik airport). The Concorde had been there earlier. The airport is also an important emergency landing runway for large aircraft in transatlantic operation in the ETOPS system, which requires aircraft to always have less than a certain flight time from a suitable landing site.The United States military base closed down in 2006.</p>
<h2 class="blog-hed2 pb-lg-4 pb-3 text-lg-left">Facilities Keflavik International Airport</h2>
<p class="blog-para">The terminal is named after Leif Erikson who was the first European to arrive in North America (Flugst&ouml;&eth; Leifs Eir&iacute;kssonar [is], "Leif Erikson Air Terminal"). It was opened in April 1987 and separated the airport's civil traffic from the military base. It was later extended with the opening of the South Building in 2001 (not a separate terminal) to comply with the requirements of the Schengen Agreement. The North Building was later enlarged and finished in 2007. The terminal has duty-free stores in the departure and arrival lounges. In 2016, the current terminal was expanded. The expansion added 7 gates. There are also plans to add a third runway.</p>
<p><img class="img-fluid p-lg-0 rounded w-100" title="Keflavik  Airport" src="../../main/img/airport/kef/1.webp" alt="Keflavik Airport" width="950px" height="500px"></p>