Marjo Cunningham traces the history of Helsinki/Malmi Airport, which is under threat of closure. special flight come in – and the newspaper tower right at the top. Malmi Airport has got the pictures in time! Inside the terminal was to be a showpiece its own special ‘pet’ for the large numbers of tourists expected – the only Douglas Art deco terminal to attend the 1940 Olympic Games which DC-3 in Finland still flying. With 34,000 The terminal building was the final Finland was to host. The ground floor hours on the log, structure to be added. It was designed offices, the first and second class waiting OH-LCH spends the by Dag Englund and Vera Rosendahl and rooms and the first floor restaurant had summer months at was in the ‘art deco’ style – the trend of the best functional furniture of the day Malmi and takes the day, as seen in other European airport – chrome-plated tubing, black leather, the members of buildings of the time. wooden blinds and panelling, all the best its fan club out on From the outset of the design work, the that modern design could produce. The occasional flights. terminal was to be of the highest standard. second floor held the headquarters of the (Lassi Tolvanen) The main body of the building is in the station manager, the radio and weather shape of a cylinder, with an open central departments and even accommodation for hall three floors high. The construction foreign pilots staying overnight. techniques of the day are evident in To make sure that tourists knew where the use of reinforced-concrete walls, they were arriving, white stones were used An ABA Junkers malmi an experiment that made it possible to to spell out the name HELSINKI on the 52/3m, named the have an unbroken chain of windows all grass between the runways. The airport Södermanland, flew around the building and an outside terrace was officially opened in May 1938 once the first passenger supported by delicate iron pillars. Two the terminal was finished. Initial regular flight to arrive at lower ‘wings’ are attached to the main traffic was by Ju-52 aircraft to Tallinn in Malmi on December body at right angles to each other, and the Estonia, Stockholm and domestic airports 16, 1936. under construction is completed by the air control elsewhere in Finland. (Aarne Pietinen) threat Malmi’s historic p in the north of Europe, a historic coastline. Soon, however, air traffic became of the eight main compass points; and all of the first-ever night flight to Malmi was and distinctive airport is fighting for survival under so important that it could not stop when them must be at least 2,624ft (800m) long. made in May 1937. King George VI of the art deco terminal pressure from surrounding urban the sea froze over in winter. United Kingdom had just been crowned in is framed by a development. Malmi Airport in In 1933, a two-seater Lockheed Sirius Airfield London and photographs of the festivities seaplane – a type UHelsinki, Finland, is a rare example of an arrived at the Helsinki sea terminal, flown A location was found 6 miles (10km) from had to make the Helsinki newspapers the of aircraft popular architecturally significant airport, best by Charles Lindbergh, who was travelling the city centre and work began in 1935 by next day. Leaving London at 1515, it took in the region before compared to Berlin/Tempelhof in Germany around Europe mapping out possible flight building roads to the area and draining the three different aircraft and over ten hours the airport was built. and Shoreham in the UK. Twice listed on the routes for the American airline Pan Am. At site in preparation for the runways. The to get the photographs to Copenhagen, (Raine Haikarainen) World Monuments Fund Watch site (in 2004 the same time Helsinki was also looking for paved concrete runways made the new then Stockholm and then on to Helsinki, and 2006), it’s described as “a uniquely a land site for an airport, and Lindbergh facility only the second such-equipped the last leg landing at Malmi at 0255. well-preserved 1930s international airport”. was invited to inspect a couple of possible airport in Europe at the time. An aircraft There was a headwind all the way, very locations in the capital area. The City of hangar was built big enough to hold six poor visibility and thunder disturbing radio History Helsinki had laid down strict conditions Junker 52s, and regular air flights started communications, so most of the journey During the 1920s and 1930s, civil aviation in for the airfield: there must be no buildings on December 16, 1936 with the arrival of a was made by compass, below the clouds, Finland was mostly provided by seaplanes, within a radius of 0.9 miles (1.5km) from the Junkers Ju-52/3m named Södermanland at a height of about 656ft (200m). Malmi very convenient in a country of a thousand centre of the airfield; there had to be four of Swedish airline ABA from Stockholm. was still not equipped with runway lights, lakes and with a capital right on the Baltic runways, enabling aircraft to land from each The airport was still unfinished when so storm lanterns were used to help the Reproduced with kind permission of Airports of the World Magazine Reproduced with kind permission of Airports of the World Magazine Nordic countries along with Britain, France and Germany; visitors from Eastern Europe are also now arriving in increasing numbers. While many arrive in their own aircraft, others rent at Malmi. Mark Baker of BF-Lento (www.bflento.fi) runs one of the rental firms and invites visitors to pick up one of his Cessnas. “It’s cheaper here,” he says. “€150 an hour for a small Cessna; and that includes the landing fee. One in ten of my rental customers comes from outside Finland, not just from Europe but from the US and Australia, for instance. They might take-off for a few hours or hire a plane for a week and cover the whole of Finland during the time.” Back in 1987, it was here that German pilot Mathias Rust, aged 19, filed a flight plan to travel to Stockholm, took-off and disappeared from radar and radio contact. When he didn’t turn up in Stockholm, the Malmi control tower feared he had crashed into the sea. When oil slicks and air bubbles were spotted in the Baltic, a search was organised but nothing was found. The next day CNN News showed pictures of a small aircraft that had landed in Red Square, was set up. Raine Haikarainen, one of was published to mark the occasion, with British pilots Moscow, and Malmi tower recognised Rust’s its founding members and currently its Raine Haikarainen one of the three authors. Richard Felix and aircraft. Apparently he had managed to chairman, explains: “The City of Helsinki Another, Seppo Sipilä, says: “Helsinki/Malmi Mark Preston and fly low enough to avoid detection and had owns the land on which the airport is built, Airport is a world-class historic and cultural their 1930s Hornet picked a day when Russian border guards but the state has a contract on the airport treasure. It is a beautifully preserved 1930s Moth G-ADNE at were celebrating an anniversary and were itself up to 2034. The City would like to international airport, of which very few have Malmi in July 2010. perhaps less observant than usual. get hold of the land earlier, and the state survived in their original use. Such a proud, The veteran aircraft has agreed to let it go as long as various living monument of an independent nation’s first flew here in Help save our airport conditions are met, including a replacement history deserves the respect of present 1954 and, armed The airfield occupies a site on marshland airport somewhere else. All the suggested and future generations. It is all the more with the authentic documents of that that was once considered unsuitable for locations are quite inappropriate, mainly for important to save the living historic aviation flight, the new housing. Over the years, however, Helsinki being too far away. That’s when we started milieu of Helsinki/Malmi airport because owners wanted has grown around the airport which is now the ‘Save Malmi’ campaign. That was ten it is the backbone of general aviation and to prove that old An aerial view Wartime flying transfer to a smaller aircraft in Stockholm. the capital, lower landing and parking fees in the middle of an urban environment. The years ago, and by now over 50,000 people pilot training in Finland.” of the airport as it aircraft can still do it. Finland did not, in the end, host the 1940 The first flight brought seven passengers and standard airport facilities all situated growth continues and building land is fiercely have signed the petition on the internet. This year, Helsinki is the World Design (Antti Hyvärinen) is today. (Raine Olympic Games. Nobody did, as World and the return fare to New York was $793.73 in a compact area. In addition to the local fought for. Some years ago, city planners There’s a special site for people outside Capital, appointed by the International Haikarainen) War Two overtook events, and in Finland – a huge sum in 1947. private pilots who use Malmi as their base, suggested that the two runways were just Finland to sign – 2,000 have done so up Council of Societies of Industrial Design.