Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra takes on her first official duties this Friday, September 4, stepping into the role alongside her father, King Haakon VIII, days after King Harald V's death set Norway's succession in motion. Starting mid-morning, the pair will attend a Council of State meeting, then hold a run of condolence audiences, receiving representatives from the Sami Parliament's Cooperation Council, the Armed Forces, and the Council for Religious and Life Stance Communities.
© NTB/AFP via Getty ImagesIt's a quiet start to a role that comes wrapped in an extraordinary amount of national machinery. King Harald died last Friday, August 28, and in that same moment, Norway activated a plan the government has kept in place since 1991: Operation K, or Action Plan K, with the K standing for Konge, the Norwegian word for King.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs built the plan the year Harald took the throne, following the death of his own father, King Olav V, and has kept it ready ever since. The operation is now running in full, and it will carry through Wednesday, September 9, when King Harald is laid to rest in a State Funeral that has drawn confirmations from an extraordinary roster of European royalty, including the Swedish royal family, King Frederik and Queen Mary of Denmark, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, and more.
© Getty ImagesA city bracing for the unprecedented
Oslo should expect a level of private jet traffic the capital has never seen. The State Funeral has been mapped out to the smallest detail, and the city will be partially shut down on the day of the ceremony and the day before. Operation K itself was developed with input from British officials who helped organize Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and briefed Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on their approach.
The Office of the Prime Minister and the Royal Palace sit at the center of the operation, working alongside the police, the armed forces, the Oslo municipal government and a range of other agencies. The disruptions are already piling up: football matches have been called off, the train has stopped running through the city center, the Stortinget metro station is closed, and Oslo's airspace has been closed over parts of the city during specific windows.
A month of mourning under King Haakon VIII
© NTB/AFP via Getty ImagesThe Norwegian Royal House announced a formal court mourning period that will run for one month, through October 9. During that stretch, every official engagement on the Royal Family's calendar is canceled, except for constitutional duties: cabinet meetings, the formal opening of the Storting (Norway's parliament), and a handful of designated audiences, including the ones Ingrid Alexandra takes part in this Friday.
Throughout the mourning period, the Royal Family and Royal Household staff will wear dark clothing or uniforms with mourning bands, and public activities at royal properties will remain closed. After October 9th, the Royal House will gradually resume its regular schedule. Visits and events that had been planned during King Harald's reign have largely been scrapped, and the Royal House's official calendar will be rebuilt.
The biggest security operation Norway has ever mounted
© NTB/AFP via Getty ImagesWhen King Olav was buried in 1991, 70 foreign aircraft touched down in Oslo carrying heads of state from around the world, in what was, at the time, the largest security operation in Norwegian history. Thirty-five years later, Operation K is expected to be bigger. Crowds, road closures and security measures are being planned on a scale Norway has never attempted before.
As of now, neither the Royal House nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows exactly who, or how many people, will ultimately show up. Every country with a diplomatic presence in Oslo has received an invitation, and so have several nations without an embassy there. Beyond that, it's up to each country to decide who it sends. The Royal Family is also expected to extend invitations to non-reigning royal houses.
Hotel guests displaced, and translated programs for the crowd
© Getty ImagesA significant share of the visiting dignitaries are expected to head home right after the funeral, which will put real strain on the country's air traffic in the hours that follow. Others will have no choice but to stay the night. Tourists and other travelers who'd already booked rooms will have to be relocated so that entire hotels can be freed up for visiting heads of state.
In a nod to how Pope Francis's funeral was handled, organizers plan to hand out programs translated from Norwegian, since many of the foreign attendees won't follow much of the ceremony in its original language.
