NEW RUNWAY WITHOUT HOLES IN FLIGHT SCHEDULES	25/06/2009
	At 06:28 the last paver left the runway. At 06:30 the morning flight from Copenhagen landed – right on schedule, on the dot. Only a few minutes before, the runway was crowded by contractors’ machinery: 9 huge asphalt pavers, 20 rollers and 82 trucks. Plus hundreds of men in yellow waistcoats. In connection with the replacement of the pavement and total rehabilitation of the large runway in Billund Airport, it was a must that the flight traffic would be handled on schedule – without delays and disturbances of the services! A partnering project between the contractor NCC, Billund Airport and Grontmij | Carl Bro ensured that this requirement was complied with. Obviously timing and planning were decisive factors. As soon as the last flight had taken off in the evening around 23:00, the large machines went out on the runway, and minutes before the first plane was scheduled to land in the morning around 06:00, they disappeared from the runway. They waited ready for another night’s intensive asphalt paving. With 9 pavers, 20 rollers and 82 trucks the surface layer of the runway was renewed within just three days from Monday to Thursday. A year of intensive planning and a 14 day period with repair works on the exiting asphalt surface, lights and taxiway junctions preceded the project. Ten years extra service life »Timing and planning were decisive factors, but the largest engineering achievement was actually that this project took place ten years later than originally planned. The runway was aged already in 1997-98. However, we were able to extend the service life and thus to postpone the large investment,« Hans Christian Korsgaard from Grontmij | Carl Bro Pavement Consultants tells. He has been the asphalt consultant for the airport for almost a generation. »Extension of the service life of a runway in a large international airport is not just done by ”filling in asphalt in some of the largest holes”. The demands on runway quality are very heavy. The smallest loose particle on the surface can lead to a catastrophe, and the runway is subjected to extreme forces – especially, when a flight takes off and every wheel generates an impact on the asphalt of up to 25 tonnes. Therefore it is important to “nurse” the surface, to keep strength, drainage conditions and friction at an optimum level and to ensure that no surface layer particles are loose - as if they were glued to the surface with super glue,« Hans Christian Korsgaard points out. Another ten years the asphalt experts from Grontmij | Carl Bro could give the runway of Billund Airport. But now it could not be postponed any longer and the 3.1 km long and 45 meter wide runway has got a new structure and a new surface expected to last until at least year 2030.