SAS Commuter - History

History

SAS Commuter was started by the owners of SAS to have a separate company to operate regional services. The airline acquired at them most 22 Fokker 50. The aircraft had 50 seats in Norway and 46 in Denmark. Swelink also operated six Saab 2000 aircraft from Stockholm Arlanda.

Eurolink started in 1988 and served domestic and short-haul international destinations from Copenhagen Airport.

Norlink stated operations in Northern Norway in 1990, at first with 7 Fokker 50, reduced to 5 in 1993. The first few years Norlink had major problems with regularity, until it opened a technical base at Trondheim Airport, Værnes in 1995. Following the SAS takeover of Braathens in 2002 Norlink division was moved from Tromsø to Bergen and renamed Westlink. After 1986 when Braathens had sold its last Fokker F-27 turboprops, the airline had wet-leased operations on the routes between Kristiansund - Stavanger - Haugesund - Bergen - Molde - Kristiansund - Trondheim, at first from its subsidiary Busy Bee and from 1993 from the independent operator Norwegian Air Shuttle. After the take-over SAS wanted to operate the routes themselves, and moved six Fokker 50 aircraft from Tromsø to Bergen. At the same time the operations previously operated by Norlink were taken over by SAS subsidiary Widerøe who operate public service obligation (PSO) routes in Northern Norway. Widerøe has operated the old Norlink routes with Dash-8-300 aircraft.

Starting in 2000 the airline replaced its fleet of aircraft in Sweden and Denmark with 24 brand new Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 aircraft seating 72 or 58 people. The company kept its Fokker aircraft in Norway, where it still operates six. As part of a company reorganisation in 2001 SAS Commuter became a subsidiary of SAS Group.

In September 2004 the group reorganised and the operations were transferred to the national operation companies, Scandinavian Airlines Denmark, Scandinavian Airlines Sweden and SAS Braathens in Norway.