It also served as a regional airport for Østfold county and owned and was operated by the private company Rygge Sivile Lufthavn AS.

The airport has a capacity for 2 million passengers per year, but could not reach this because of a concession limit of 21,000 annual air movements.

The airport used to be a major base for Ryanair[6] from March 2010 until October 2016 and was also served to a much lesser extent by Norwegian Air Shuttle and few charter operators.

[11] In 1998, a report was made by SCC Trafikon which concluded that by building a civilian section at Rygge Air Station, it would be possible to generate 130,000 passengers per year, of which 40,000 would be charter travels.

The idea was initially supported by local parliamentarians, Østfold County Council and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise.

[12] In February 1999, Minister of Transport and Communications Dag Jostein Fjærvoll stated that he supported the opening of civilian traffic from Rygge.

[17] In December, the Norwegian Civil Airport Administration stated that they were negative to the plans for civilian traffic at Rygge.

[20] In March 2003, Rygge Labour Party stated they were opposed to the civilian airport, because of the local noise concerns.

In particular, they were concerned about emission into the lake, Vansjø, or alternatively to a Ramsar site in Kurefjorden, and about the local noise pollution, with the airport being located close to Moss.

[30] Negotiations between the air force and Rygge Sivile Lufthavn started in June 2005 to establish an agreement regarding operations and financing.

The agreements involved, in addition to a new terminal, upgrades to the runway, taxiway and navigational systems, which would be paid for by Rygge Sivile Lufthavn.

[34] On 12 June, activists from Natur og Ungdom chained themselves to the control tower in protest against the establishment of civilian aviation.

[37] At the same time, representatives from Torp, the Federation of Norwegian Aviation Industries and the Conservative Party stated that the agreement between the military and the operating company was illegal subsidies.

[38] In September, the Thon Group announced they would not build a planned 34-meter (112 ft) tall hotel at the airport, as military regulations would not permit it.

[50] Norwegian Air Shuttle established a base at Rygge on 14 February 2008, with a second aircraft being stationed at the airport from 13 March.

From February to April, Norwegian Air Shuttle started international flights to Alicante, Athens, Barcelona, Belgrade, Budapest, Istanbul, London, Málaga, Marrakech, Palanga, Szczecin, Valencia, Warsaw, with between two and four weekly services to each destination.

[51] Norwegian's services to Belgrade, Istanbul, Marrakech, Szczecin and Valencia were all terminated at Gardermoen the same time as they opened at Rygge.

The same day, the Norwegian State Railways started offering a shuttle bus service from Rygge Station on the Østfold Line to the airport.

[45] Star Tour started weekly charter flights to Antalya, Chania and Palma de Mallorca during the first half of 2008.

[59] In October, Norwegian Air Shuttle introduced new international services to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,[60] Berlin, Kraków and Prague.

[67] In February, the Civil Aviation Authority recommended that the airport's ceiling be lifted,[68] and this was made effective by the ministry on 1 July.

[70] In October and November, Ryanair established itself at the airport, and started flights to Alicante, Barcelona, Brussels, Bremen, Madrid, Milan and London.

[6] Norwegian stated that they were not worried about competition from Ryanair, and announced that they would continue with flights to the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe and domestically.

[73] The airline would start services to Århus, Berlin, Dublin, Weeze, Eindhoven, Gdańsk, Kraków, La Rochelle, Málaga, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Paris, Riga, Wrocław, Valencia and Venice.

[77] In mid-2010, Norwegian terminated its services to Berlin, Budapest, Palanga, Prague and Valencia, and reduced the frequency to Alicante and Málaga.

[83] The airport announced on 24 May 2016 that it would cease civilian operations by 1 November 2016, stating that the Norwegian air passenger charge made Rygge uncompetitive.

[citation needed] Business travellers usually require frequent departures and Ryanair offered sparse schedules with often a few flights per destination and week.

The military run all common functions of the airport, such as the runway, fire and rescue service, and the air traffic control.

Ryanair shut down its entire operations on 29 October 2016[8] while the only other regular tenant, Norwegian Air Shuttle, left a few days earlier.

[90] There is a waiting room in the station building[91] Prior to the closure of the airport, UniBuss operated Rygge-Ekspressen from Oslo with a travel time of 60 minutes.