Denmark’s Billund Airport to build an airport city – but not out of Lego

It is incumbent upon small regional airports to find ways to survive the current crises. Typically they have looked solely to the low cost sector for scheduled services, with a modicum of success.

Denmark's Billund Airport, which is located in a rural part of the country in the Southern Denmark administrative region, is taking a different approach by building, in collaboration with Denmark's largest labour market pension fund, an 'airport city.'

Many airports have an aspiration towards having an attached commercial city but do not have the economic clout to underpin it. That is not the case with Billund, which is the headquarters location of Lego, one of the largest toy companies in the world, and of its associated theme park, the original Legoland.

Together with a decision by Maersk - also a giant in its own field (shipping) - to make Billund its European air freight hub, that gives Billund a huge incentive to turn a sleepy part of the country into a major employment centre for the whole of Denmark.