Copenhagen Airport’s beautiful wooden floors

Many of our passengers notice the beautiful wooden floors that cover much of the airport transit area. You may wonder what kind of wood we used for the floors: a wood that gives warmth and a glow to the elegant airport’s steel and glass decor.

In the shopping areas between Piers A and B, the first wooden floor was laid in 1960 as part of the new Terminal 2. This floor is made of Padauk, a hardwood from Asia, more specifically from the Burma region. In the access areas of Piers A and B, we laid a floor made of Merbau in 1985-87.

Merbau grows in south-east Asia and has a reddish brown colour. The wood is a coarse-grained building wood especially suited for purposes such as flooring and furniture-making.

In the airport bus terminal between Piers B and C, a floor of Jatoba wood was laid at the turn of the year 1995-96 to replace linoleum. Jatoba grows in tropical America and the West Indies, and its colours range from orange to reddish brown. The wood is well suited for carpentry work both inside and outside, and its use at Copenhagen Airport proves that it is an excellent material for floors and stairways.

Very long life

More Jatoba flooring was later added when an extension of the airport was built, and it can now be seen in much of the transit area, including the newest section in Piers C and D. If cleaned and maintained correctly, both types of wood have a very long lives. The oldest part of the wooden floor is now 44 years old, and it is certainly not showing its age, despite the millions of feet that have walked on it over the years.

Thus the additional cost of such a floor is soon outweighed by the benefits of its long life. Linoleum, for instance, must be replaced relatively frequently in areas with as much foot traffic as an airport, where as many as 50,000 passengers and thousands of employees walk on the floor every day. Moreover, the wooden floors highlight the high quality and special finish which characterises both the architecture and the materials used at Copenhagen Airport.

The wooden floors require regular maintenance with hardening oil, which gives them an increasingly beautiful surface over time. The floors are cleaned every day with oil-treated mop cloths. We use Junckers conditioning oil to maintain the floors.

Padauk parquet blocks cost about DKK 1300 per square metre; Merbau and Jatoba are somewhat less expensive.   The airport’s suppliers in Denmark are Hørning Parket and Trip Trap.

For further information, please contact Jens Johansen of Copenhagen Airports on tel +45 3231 2662 on weekdays between 8:00 am and 3:00 pm.