Paul Gunnar Zindel of the Norwegian Customs Officers Union confirmed the NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) report, and said it was a regrettable result of manning shortages.
"We have tried squeezing resources from administration to control. We have never managed to restore numbers after losing all the good staff we lost after the last major restructuring," Zindel told NRK.
In the central Norway customs region only Trondheim's Værnes Airport has an overview of how often there are no customs officers on duty. Other regions have no such overview, but all confirm that there are many hours each week when there are no controls made due to a lack of manpower.
Assistant director Øystein Haraldsen at Norwegian Customs and Excise said that he was not aware of the problem.
"We have never had any feedback about a lack of presence or of a lack of resources to provide presence," Haraldsen told NRK. NRK reported that Oslo's Gardermoen International Airport had constant customs staffing.
