No Bar­neo flights from Lon­gye­ar­by­en

The Rus­si­an north pole drift ice camp Bar­nea has been an annu­al event from 2002 for a cou­ple of weeks each spring. Offi­ci­al­ly, it is main­ly for sci­ence, but it was regu­lar­ly used by north pole tou­rists and at least occa­sio­nal­ly for mili­ta­ry pur­po­ses such as in April 2016, when Che­chen spe­cial forces made a brief appearance in the air­port of Lon­gye­ar­by­en on tran­sit to Bar­neo on a Rus­si­an-led trai­ning mis­si­on.

But the main use appears to be within tou­rism: for pri­ces from 20,000 dol­lars and more, tou­rists could fly from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to Bar­neo and con­ti­nue from the­re to the north pole by heli­c­op­ter or ski.

The flight logi­stics for tou­rists used to go through Lon­gye­ar­by­en air­port, but this hub has not been available for this pur­po­se sin­ce 2018. This has led to nego­tia­ti­ons bet­ween the orga­ni­sa­ti­on behind Bar­neo, offi­ci­a­ly a Swiss com­pa­ny, and Nor­we­gi­an aut­ho­ri­ties.

Sval­bard luft­havn Lon­gyear in April, the Bar­neo-sea­son: no north pole flights from the­re.

Recent­ly the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment con­firm­ed their nega­ti­ve ans­wer: the air­port near Lon­gye­ar­by­en is at times ope­ra­ting near its capa­ci­ty limits, and neces­sa­ry stand­by emer­gen­cy ser­vices are limi­t­ed. It comes in addi­ti­on that the extra bur­don on the local flight hand­ling capa­ci­ties did usual­ly not bene­fit the local com­mu­ni­ty as Bar­neo tou­rists would usual­ly not stay in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The­se are among­st the main argu­ments for the Nor­we­gi­an traf­fic minis­try, accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten.

The Swiss Bar­neo com­pa­ny may still take legal steps against this decis­i­on.

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