Linjeflyg
| Linjeflyg | |
|---|---|
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| IATA code : | LF |
| ICAO code : | LIN |
| Call sign : | Swedline |
| Founding: | 1957 |
| Operation stopped: | 1993 |
| Seat: |
Stockholm , Sweden
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| Home airport : |
Stockholm / Bromma 1957–1983 Stockholm / Arlanda 1983–1993 |
| Fleet size: | 27 |
| Aims: | national |
| Linjeflyg ceased operations in 1993. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Linjeflyg (German: Scheduled Flight ) was a Swedish airline founded on April 2, 1957. The founding companies were the Swedish airlines Airtaco and SAS (50%) and the newspaper publishers Dagens Nyheter (33.33%), Aftonbladet and Pressbyrån (both 8.33%). On January 1, 1993, the airline was fully integrated into SAS; this ended their independent existence.
history
Airtaco
From 1949, the three big newspaper publishers Aftonbladet , Aftontidningen and Expressen began to distribute their evening editions across the country by plane. In the following years these services were carried out by the airlines Aero-Nord (Sweden), Transair Sweden (formerly Nordisk Aero Transport ) and Airtaco . Passengers were carried on the way back. Transair withdrew from this business in 1956 and focused on the growing charter market; the appearance of the Aftontidningen was stopped in November 1956, which also resulted in the closure of the Aero-Nord - Airtaco remained.
Airtaco started operations in August 1950 as Aero Scandia . However, the aircraft manufacturer Saab objected to this, as this name was too reminiscent of its latest short-haul aircraft, the Saab Scandia . Thereupon the airline was named after its founder " Air T orvald A ndersson Co. " , ie Airtaco .
It was the predecessor of Linjeflyg and was integrated into the new company along with its fleet in 1957.
Linjeflyg
With the establishment of Linjeflyg, Airtacos four Lockheed L-18 Lodestar and four Douglas DC-3 were taken over into the new fleet. After SAS had handed over ten DC-3s with a uniform technical standard to Linjeflyg, their original four DC-3s as well as two of the four Lodestar and the remaining Lockheed L-12 Electra Junior were sold.
Linjeflyg's first passenger flight was on April 14, 1957 with a Douglas DC-3 from Stockholm via Kalmar to Malmö . Linjeflyg already flew to the following Swedish cities in the first year of operation: Jönköping , Kalmar, Karlstad , Kristianstad ( Rinkaby ), Lidköping , Malmö ( Bulltofta ), Nordmaling , Stockholm ( Bromma ), Sundsvall , Visby and Växjö (Kronobergshed). There was also a flight connection to Copenhagen .
Mail and newspapers were transported at night and people and freight were carried during the day. Almost all connections were domestic connections, as the international flights were operated by SAS. 136,000 passengers were carried in the first year of operation.
Linjeflyg tried to counteract very strong seasonal fluctuations in occupancy with various discounts. For example, “first-time flyers” only paid half the price outside the summer season, and there was an equally high “women's discount” in winter. The SAS monopoly on the lucrative routes to Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Kiruna and Luleå also prevented Linjeflyg's profitability.
The last Lockheed Lodestars were sold in 1960. In January of the same year the first of seven Convair CV-340s was taken over, four of which came from the Mexican Aeronaves de México and three from the Brazilian VARIG . All were soon modified to the Convair CV-440 Metropolitan . With 56 passenger seats, the Convair at Linjeflyg was quite tight. From 1963 to 1971 another 15 used CV-440s were procured, mostly from the parent company SAS. The Metropolitan remained in service until March 1979, when it carried around 10 million passengers and introduced the “folkflyget” in Sweden - flying on domestic routes at affordable prices.
In 1964, two eight-seat Aero Commander 500s were rented from Ehrenström Flyg AB on a trial basis in order to operate lines that were particularly underutilized. The last DC-3 was sold in February 1965.
In order to serve also lines the passenger volume was low for the Convair to have been from 1967 to 1970 four brand-new turboprop aircraft of the type North 262 adopted with 26 seats, but sold again in 1974. In 1970 the fleet consisted of 17 Convair CV-440s and four Nord 262s; 760,000 passengers were carried and a profit of 2.5 million Swedish kronor was made .
On April 26, 1973, the first of three Fokker F28-1000s that had been ordered was put into service, thus ushering in the jet age at Linjeflyg as well.
In the same year, the operation of the route to Gävle was handed over to Crownair, in which Linjeflyg held 50% of the shares, and initially flown with six to eight-seat Piper Navajo on Linjeflyg's order, before this type was soon flown by DHC-6 Twin Otter for 19 passengers was replaced. Even after Crownair's renaming to Swedair, several Twin Otter were operated on behalf of Linjeflyg. B. on the short route Malmö-Copenhagen.
Since the delivery of the larger Fokker F28-4000 that had been ordered was delayed, three Vickers Viscounts from the Swedish airline Skyline from Malmö were rented from 1975 to 1977 , one of which crashed in January 1977 (see below, "Air accident in Kälvesta"). From December 1976 to April 1978, the ten F28-4000s were then delivered.
From 1957 to 1983 Bromma was the main airport of Linjeflyg, before moving to the newly built Terminal 4 in Arlanda in 1983 , as the noise limits in Bromma could no longer be met.
Transition to SAS
From 1990 onwards, the Boeing 737-500 that had been ordered were delivered to gradually replace the Fokker F28. In the fall of 1990, SAS sold its shares in Linjeflyg to the freight company Bilspedition , only to buy them back a year and a half later. The reason for this was that they wanted to give up the brand and only want to appear under SAS. The company has been fully integrated into SAS since 1993 and the Linjeflyg brand is no longer used.
Destinations
For a long time, flight operations were limited to Swedish domestic routes. Gradually, Linjeflyg finally flew to 39 destinations, of which Copenhagen and Oslo were the only international destinations and were served on behalf of SAS.
From the end of the 1970s, however, more and more charter flights to other European countries were carried out, with the Fokkers and later Boeing 737s not only being used to France, Austria and Holland, but also reaching Spain and Portugal.
fleet
The year numbers indicate when the first aircraft was taken into service or the last one taken out of service. The number shows the total number of aircraft that have ever operated under a Linjeflyg flight number. This also includes aircraft that Linjeflyg has rented but never painted in their colors. The passenger capacity indicates the seating version chosen by Linjeflyg. If a range is given, it means that there were different configurations.
| Aircraft type | Active between (year) | Number of aircraft at Linjeflyg | Passenger capacity | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lockheed L-12 Electra Junior | 1957 | 1 | 9 | Owned by Airtaco AB , probably never painted in Linjeflyg colors. |
| Lockheed L-18 Lodestar | 1957-60 | 4th | 15th | |
| Douglas DC-3 | 1957-65 | 16 | 28-32 | |
| Convair CV-340 Convairliner and CV-440 Metropolitan | 1960-79 | 23 | 52-56 | |
| Aero 680 Grand Commander | 1965-67 | 2 | 7-8 | Rented from Ehrenström Flyg AB. They were provided with the LIN logo and Linjeflyg lettering. |
| North 262 | 1967-75 | 4th | 26th | |
| Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship | 1973-92 | 4th | 65-70 | |
| Fokker F28-4000 Fellowship | 1973-92 | 17th | 85 | In addition, two F28-6000s were briefly leased from Fokker. |
| Boeing 737-500 | 1990-92 | 10 | 130-131 | Delivery of the machines from April 1990. |
| Boeing 737-300 | 1989-91 | 2 | 147-148 | One of them leased from Maersk Air in 1989/1990 . |
| Boeing 737 -33AQC | 1991-92 | 3 | 142 | Rented from Linjeflyg but operated by Falcon Cargo (a subsidiary of Postverket , a forerunner of today's Swedish Post). Used for mail transport at night and for people transport during the day. |
Incidents
Air accident in Ängelholm, 1964
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On November 20, 1964, a Convair CV-340 (SE-CCK) from Linjeflyg had an accident in bad weather while approaching Ängelholm-Barkåkra . 29 of 39 passengers and two of the four crew members were killed. The flight took off from Bromma under flight number LF267V at 19:46 and was originally intended to fly the route Bromma- Hultsfred - Halmstad -Angelholm. Due to bad weather, the master decided not to stop over in Hultsfred (the “V” in the flight number indicates that a flight plan change has been made). During the flight, the weather deteriorated, which is why it was decided not to make the stopover in Halmstad either.
The pilots planned to conduct a combined instrument and visual approach to runway 14 from Barkåkra. Visibility was poor, with a range of 1.5 km to 2 km, a cloud height of 60 m and rain. At the height of Halmstad, the pilots were informed that the weather in Ängelholm had improved, which is why this city was then approached directly.
On approach, however, the aircraft had deviated from course and was too low. The pilots increased the engine output, but the aircraft still touched the ground a few kilometers from the runway and briefly touched down in a field. Shortly afterwards it struck a railway overhead line and then fell to the ground, slid a few hundred meters on the ground and then overturned on the roof. Twelve of the people on board survived the accident, three of them uninjured.
The investigative commission did not come to a clear determination of the cause of the accident, but the most likely explanation was that it was a concatenation of several circumstances: The Barkåkra airfield was mainly used for military purposes and the pilots did not know exactly how the military guide lights were placed in front of the runway. The approach beacons ("outer" and "inner marker") were also set up differently than prescribed for civil airports. There were also some misunderstandings in radio communications between the air traffic controller and the pilots. Six months earlier, Linjeflyg's pilots had criticized the approach conditions at the military airfields and called for improvements.
Flight training accident in Stockholm / Arlanda, 1969
On November 1, 1969, a Linjeflyg Convair CV-440 (SE-BSU) had an accident during a training flight at Stockholm / Arlanda Airport. With a simulated engine failure, the machine got out of control; there was a crash landing. All four pilots on board were uninjured, but the aircraft was a total economic loss.
Air accident in Kälvesta, 1977
On January 15, 1977, a Vickers Viscount 838 (SE-FOZ) rented by Skyline crashed into a parking lot on Ängsullsvägen in Kälvesta , a suburb of Stockholm, while approaching Bromma . All 22 people on board were killed, including Hans Alsér , who had just been appointed coach of the Swedish national team in table tennis and the former national coach of the German national table tennis team . None of the people on the ground were killed, but some cars were destroyed and some residential buildings suffered minor fire damage from the burning aircraft.
The accident was triggered by icing of the horizontal stabilizer, which resulted in the aircraft becoming uncontrollable when the landing flaps were extended to the end position. The Swedish pilots were not informed that the aircraft type was susceptible to this form of icing, which occurs frequently in northern Europe in winter.
See also
literature
- Ulf Edlund, Lennart Andersson, Lennart Berns, Sven Stridsberg: Svensk flyghistoria under 1900-talet , Svensk Flyghistorisk Förening, Stockholm 2003, ISSN 1100-9837 ( Swedish )
- Michael Sanz: Linjeflyg - från start till landning ; Allt om hobby, 2000; ISBN 91-7243-004-4
- Jan Ohlsson: I air - Flygets årsbok 1983: 25 år med Linjeflyg ; Liber Forlag, 1982; ISBN 91-38-90214-1
- Swedish Wikipedia article
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Linjeflyg - de första fem åren . Svensk Flyghistorisk Tidskrift, ISSN 1100-9837 , February 2018 (Swedish), p. 44.
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 175
- ↑ Linjeflyg - de första fem åren . Svensk Flyghistorisk Tidskrift, ISSN 1100-9837 , February 2018 (Swedish), p. 45.
- ↑ Svensk flyghistoria under 1900-talet, pp. 170–171
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 174
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 177
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 186
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 182
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 184
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, picture on p. 180
- ↑ a b JP airline-fleets international 1992/93
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international 1991/92
- ^ Accident report CV-340 SE-CCK , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on April 3, 2017.
- ↑ Flygets årsbok 1983, p. 181
- ^ Accident report CV-440 SE-BSU , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on April 3, 2017.
- ^ Accident report Viscount 838 SE-FOZ , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on April 3, 2017.
