Arlanda celebrates 50

• 

  Arlanda Airport celebrated its 50th birthday.

• Arlanda celebrates 50
  Last weekend a close friend to many of us celebrated 50 years. Arlanda Airport (or Stockholm Arlanda Airport) is a place many Swedes in the diaspora know inside and out. It was on April 1, 1962, that then King Gustav VI Adolf officially opened the airport. The decision to build the airport was made by the government in 1946, and toward the end of the 1950s a simple runway was built. The magazine Året Runt posted a contest, asking its readers for ideas of what the airport should be called. The name was suggested from the folksy name of the parish where the airport is located: Arland. Today over 19 million travelers pass through Arlanda each year.