Color Air
| Color Air | |
|---|---|
|
|
| IATA code : | |
| ICAO code : | CLA |
| Call sign : | PENNANT |
| Founding: | 1998 |
| Operation stopped: | 1999 |
| Seat: |
Oslo , Norway
|
| Home airport : | Oslo-Gardermoen |
| Management: | Ove Johan Solem ( CEO ) |
| Fleet size: | 3 |
| Aims: | national and continental |
| Color Air ceased operations in 1999. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Color Air was the first Norwegian low-cost airline based in Oslo and based at Oslo-Gardermoen Airport . It was a sister company of the Color Line shipping company and only existed from 1998 to 1999.
history
Color Air was founded by the owner of the shipping company Color Line , Nils Olav Sunde, and was initially supposed to operate feeder flights between Ålesund and Oslo for their ferry connections. The first flight took place on September 6, 1998 with a Boeing 737-300 between these two cities, although Oslo-Fornebu Airport was still in use in Oslo a few weeks before its closure .
Before 1994, the Norwegian domestic market was regulated by the state. A corresponding contract allocated the route from Oslo to Bergen exclusively to SAS Scandinavian Airlines since 1952 , while the then Braathens SAFE flew from Oslo to Stavanger , Ålesund and Trondheim . In 1994 the market was finally opened to competition and there was fierce competition on most of these links between the two companies (which Braathens eventually lost when it was acquired by SAS in 2002). Only from Oslo to Ålesund did Braathens initially continue to fly exclusively.
On October 8, 1998, the new Oslo-Gardermoen Airport was opened, replacing the previously congested Oslo-Fornebu Airport. This removed the bottleneck in Norwegian aviation and Color Air used the new capacities to offer domestic flights to Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim with three Boeing 737-300s. SAS and Braathens countered this new competition with a consolidation of their flight plans on these routes, in some cases there were more than 50 connections per day and city, which put them in the top 10 European domestic routes with the highest transport offer. In addition, SAS now also flew to Ålesund.
Due to the competition and the low prices of Color Air, which were made possible by a no frills concept , a price war broke out between the three airlines. Color Line did not succeed in establishing itself as the market leader, partly due to the lack of a concept for customer loyalty - for example, no frequent flyer program was offered. SAS and Braathens, on the other hand, had a strong financial background at that time (SAS due to the profitable traffic in Denmark and Sweden , Braathens due to the then shareholder KLM ) and could afford to lose money in this price war.
As a result of this competitive situation, Color Air went into bankruptcy on October 1, 1999, just over a year after starting operations, and was finally dissolved. It is estimated that in its 13 months of operation there was a loss of around half a billion NOK .
Destinations
Color Air flew from its home base, Oslo-Gardermoen Airport , inland to Bergen , Stavanger , Trondheim and Ålesund and internationally to London-Stansted and Alicante .
fleet
During its existence, Color Air's fleet comprised three aircraft:
- 3 Boeing 737-300s (2 returned to ILFC , 1 sold to bmi )
See also
Web links
- Official website of Color air ( Memento from April 21, 1999 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b airfleets.net - Color Air fleet (English) accessed on October 16, 2011
