History
The airline was established by Snorre Sturla Kjetilson and his wife Reidun. Originally from Rjukan, the Snorre in Drammen when he decided to take his pilots' license. Along with an investor, Kjetilson bought a Cessna 180 from Thor Solberg in 1954 and established Drammen Flyselskap. The investor quickly lost faith in the airline and sold his share to Kjetilson. To secure sufficient business, he contacted several newspapers, and agreed to fly Dagbladet from Oslo to Grenland daily. From 1955 the airline flew from the water aerodrome at Oslo Airport, Fornebu to Herøya in Porsgrunn and onwards to Hjellevatnet in Skien. Later in the year, wheels were placed on the aircraft and it started flying to Geiteryggen. Geiteryggen became the airline's base, and the couple moved to Skien in 1957.
The airline took delivery of a used Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer on 3 September 1963. The remainder of the year the aircraft remained at Geiteryggen for an overhaul. Among the uses of the aircraft had originally been thought crop dusting, but this was never carried out. The aircraft's test flight took place on 24 April 1964 and the aircraft entered service on 2 May, flying Odd to Bergen to play a football match. In addition to charter, the 16-passenger aircraft was sometimes used on the round trips to Oslo. Fjellfly was the only Norwegian operator of the Twin Pioneer.
Fjellfly received permission to operated a scheduled "line taxi" service from Skien to Fornebu. This implied that the route was flown with less administrative work, but limited the size of the aircraft. The services started on 1 March 1963 using the Twin Pioneer. At the time, only a single pilot in the country had the necessary type rating for the aircraft. The Twin Pioneer was expensive, having high fuel consumption, high maintenance costs and a lower speed. In addition, it had too high capacity for the Fornebu route. Kjetilson considered purchasing the de Havilland Dove, but no deal was struck. A scheduled services from Skien via Sandefjord Airport, Torp and Oslo Airport, Fornebu to Hamar Airport, Stafsberg was established from 2 May 1967.
Kjetilson was one of the driving forces behind Vest-Telemark Airport, Fyresdal. He had faith in that the area was superb for tourism and stated to Telemark Arbeiderblad on 16 September 1967 that he would give the airline to the municipality it Fyresdal did not have continental traffic within two years. The airport opened on 23 September. Fjellfly established a pilot school at Kristiansand Airport, Kjevik the same year. With the upgrading of Geiteryggen to a longer, asphalt runway, the airline started looking for a more economical aircraft. In 1969, Fjellfly bought a de Havilland Heron from Tokyo and flew it back, arriving in February 1970. After a simple renovation, which included a renewal of the interior, the aircraft was put into service in the scheduled traffic.
A second Heron was bought in 1971 and registered it on 10 February 1972. However, it would never enter service. By March Fjellfly was bankrupt. As Geiteryggen was operated by the airline, it also closed, but was soon reopened. After the bankruptcy, the aviation authorities were criticized for giving the schedule concession in 1967 to Fjellfly as the privilege was granted based on rural politics concessions while the company did not have sufficient financial security to operate the route.
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