Lufttransport is a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

and

fixed-wing A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct ...

airline that operates primarily air

ambulance An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...

helicopters and planes for the Norwegian and

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

governments. In addition the airline offers services including surveillance for the

Norwegian Coast Guard The Norwegian Coast Guard ( no, Kystvakten) is a maritime military force which is part of the Royal Norwegian Navy. The coast guard's responsibility are for fisheries inspection, customs enforcement, border control, law enforcement, shipping ...

, transport of ship pilots and scheduled air transport in the Norwegian territory of Svalbard. The airline operates 10 helicopters and 14 fixed-wing aircraft and has headquarters in Tromsø. In 2005 the company had a revenue of 300 million NOK.

History

Early history

Lufttransport was established in 1971 with a base at

Bardufoss Airport Bardufoss Airport ( no, Bardufoss lufthavn; ) is a primary airport situated at Bardufoss in Målselv Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The airport, which is the civilian sector of the Royal Norwegian Air Force's (RNoAF) Bardufoss A ...

.Olsen-Hagen: 77 By 1973 it had a revenue of 1.3 million Norwegian kroner and four employees.Olsen-Hagen: 78 In expanded in 1978 after it was awarded contracts to fly services out of

Svalbard Airport, Longyear Svalbard Airport ( no, Svalbard lufthavn; ) is the main airport serving Svalbard in Norway. It is northwest of Longyearbyen on the west coast, and is the northernmost airport in the world with scheduled public flights. The first airport near Lo ...

in 1978. This included both flights for the mining company Store Norske and the research institute Kings Bay to Ny-Ålesund Airport, Hamnerabben. The company's largest growth came in 1980, when took steps to start flying offshore services. Lufttransport was seen as a credible competitor to the then monopolist Helikopter Service. In 1982 both Statoil and

Norsk Hydro Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around the world a ...

signed three-year contracts with a combined value of 300 million kroner to fly to installations in the

Norwegian Sea The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to ...

off Northern Norway. For these routes, six Aerospatiale AS 332L Super Pumas were procured between 1983 and 1985. The airline was also awarded a contract with

Saga Petroleum Saga Petroleum ASA was a Norwegian upstream petroleum company established in 1972 that was acquired by Norsk Hydro in 1999. In October 2007 it was made part of Statoil. The company was the only fully private oil company in Norway. It had partial ...

to operate offshore flights in

Benin Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the nort ...

. By 1984 the airline reach a revenue of 170 million kroner, with 110 employees, after it started flights to Trænabanken and Tromsøflaket, the latter based out of

Tromsø Airport Tromsø Airport ( no, Tromsø lufthavn; ) is an international airport located at Langnes in the city of Tromsø in Tromsø Municipality, Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. Situated on the western shore of the island of Tromsøya, it features a r ...

. It also established a base at

Bergen Airport, Flesland Bergen Airport ( nn, Bergen lufthamn; ), alternatively Bergen Flesland Airport or simply Flesland Airport, is an international airport located at Flesland in the city and municipality of Bergen, Vestland, Norway. Opened in 1955, it is the sec ...

where Statoil used Lufttransport for some flights to

Statfjord The Statfjord oil field is a large oil and gas field covering 580 km2 in the U.K.-Norwegian boundary of the North Sea at a water depth of 145 m, discovered in 1974 by Mobil and since 1987 operated by Equinor. It is a trans-median field cros ...

. Olsen-Hagen: 79 A fall in the oil price had resulted in a reduced willingness for the oil companies to pay higher prices to Lufttransport in order to entice competition The three-year contract with Statoil and Norsk Hydro was not extended, leaving the company in financial dire straits. Lufttransport therefore contacted Helikopter Service, resulting in a merger from 1 January 1987. Helikopter Service took over all offshore operations, while land-based services continued in the subsidiary Lufttransport.

Merger with Mørefly

Helikopter Service bought another mid-sized helicopter and fixed-wing operator, the

Ålesund Ålesund () sometimes spelled Aalesund in English, is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal County, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sunnmøre and the centre of the Ålesund Region. The town of Ålesund is the administrativ ...

-based Mørefly, in 1992. Also there the mother company took over all offshore operations and left only the land-based flights for Mørefly. Due to the similarities in profile, Mørefly and Lufttransport were merged in 1995. Tromsø was selected as the new company's head office and it also retained the name Lufttransport. However, it retained the air operator's certificate and organization number of Mørefly, which had been founded in 1955.Olsen-Hagen: 76 At the time of the merger, Mørefly was one of the two large air ambulance operators in Norway, along with Norsk Luftambulanse. In addition to its main base at Ålesund Airport, Vigra, there were fixed-wing air ambulance bases at Brønnøysund Airport, Brønnøy;

Bodø Airport Bodø Airport ( no, Bodø lufthavn; ) is a civil airport in the town of Bodø in Bodø Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. Located just south of the city centre, on the westernmost tip of the Bodø peninsula, it shares facilities with the mi ...

;

; Alta Airport; and Kirkenes Airport, Høybuktmoen, served by six Beechcraft King Air. A Dauphin 2 was flown out of Ålesund Heliport, Central Hospital. It also held a contract with the

to fly

maritime surveillance {{Unreferenced, date=March 2008 Maritime patrol is the task of monitoring areas of water. Generally conducted by military and law enforcement agencies, maritime patrol is usually aimed at identifying human activities. Maritime patrol refers to ac ...

over the North Sea.Hjelle: 127 Helikopter Service sold Lufttransport in 2000 to

Norwegian Air Shuttle Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, trading as Norwegian, is a Norwegian low-cost airline and Norway's largest airline. It is the fourth largest low-cost carrier in Europe behind Wizz Air, easyJet and Ryanair, the second-largest airline in Scandinavia ...

, at the time a regional airline. It sold Lufttransport and the Swedish operator Heliflyg in 2005 to

Norsk Helikopter Bristow Norway AS (formerly Norsk Helikopter) is a Norwegian helicopter company that transports crew to oil installations in the North Sea. It has headquarters in Stavanger and has additional operations out of Bergen, Florø, and Hammerfest. Th ...

, Helikopter Service's main competitor. It sold Lufttransport to Knut Axel Ugland Holding three years later, in a deal which saw Ugland sell its 51 percent of Norsk Helikopter to the Bristow Group.Olsen-Hagen: 80 The company returned to offshore flights in 2004, when it won a two-year contract to fly all services in the Norwegian sector for Teekay, later Teekay Petrojarl. The contract has been renewed numerous times.Olsen-Hagen: 81 Lufttransport commenced scheduled passenger services on the route from

Værøy Heliport Værøy Heliport ( no, Værøy helikopterhavn; ) is a heliport located at Tobbisodden on the island of Værøya in Værøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The heliport lies close to the village of Sørland, the municipal centre of the ...

in 2005. It won the public service obligation tender, valid from 1 August 2005, ahead of Helikopter Service with a bid of NOK 56 million. Lufttransport renewed the contract for a new three years starting 1 August 2008, after they were the only bidder in the tender. They received NOK 102 million for three years. During this period better

navigational aids Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

were installed, allowing helicopters to operate during twice per day also during the dark period of the year. Lufttransport was the only bidder for the following contract, which lasts three years from 1 August 2011. The subsidies for this period are NOK 96 million. The company started operations on Svalbard in 1978, transporting crew from the new international airport at Longyearbyen to the mines at Svea and

Ny-Ålesund Ny-Ålesund ("New Ålesund") is a small town in Oscar II Land on the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard, Norway. It is situated on the Brøgger peninsula (Brøggerhalvøya) and on the shore of the bay of Kongsfjorden. The company town is owned ...

. From 1994 the airline has operated Dornier 228 aircraft at Svalbard. Since 2002 the company has co-operated with the shipping pilot service in Bergen, flying pilots out to vessels at sea. In 2000 its owner CHC Helikopter Service, part of

CHC Helicopter CHC Helicopter is a Texas-based helicopter services company. CHC Helicopter maintains it global headquarters in Irving, Texas and operates more than 250 aircraft in 30 countries around the world. CHC's major international operating units are b ...

, sold Lufttransport to

. In 2005 Norwegian sold Lufttransport and the Swedish Heliflyg to

. As part of a restructuring of its operations, Norsk Helikopter (now fully owned by Bristow Group) sold Lufttransport in its entirety to Knut Axel Ugland Holding in October 2008.

Operations

Ambulance

In Norway Lufttransport has Beech King Air B200 ambulance planes stationed at * 1 Kirkenes Airport, Høybuktmoen * 2 Alta Airport * 1

* 1 Brønnøysund Airport, Brønnøy * 2

Oslo Airport, Gardermoen Oslo Airport ( no, Oslo lufthavn; ), alternatively referred to as Oslo Gardermoen Airport or simply Gardermoen, is the international airport serving Oslo, Norway, the capital and most populous city in the country. A hub for Flyr, Norse Atl ...

* 1

* 1 Ålesund Airport, Vigra It also has helicopter bases at * Brønnøysund Hospital AW139 *

University Hospital of North Norway The University Hospital of North Norway ( no, Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norge) or UNN is a hospital and health trust. UNN is a university hospital for the region which includes the counties of Nordland, Troms and Finnmark. It is part of the ...

Tromsø AW139 * Ålesund Hospital AW139

Svalbard

The airline also has two

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 19 ...

aircraft stationed at

that fly regular charter flights to Ny-Ålesund Airport, Hamnerabben and Svea Airport for the mining company Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani and the company in charge of the research village of

, Kings Bay. One of the Dornier aircraft also carries out surveillance for the Norwegian Coast Guard, primarily checking fishing boats in the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territo ...

. Lufttransport flies about 400 hours per year for the Coast Guard. From August 29, 2019 one of the aircraft was fitted with high-resolution sensors and advanced communication equipment provided by NORCE research centre making it the first passenger aircraft equipped for environmental monitoring.

Ship pilots

Two Agusta helicopters based at

were used to transport ship pilots until 1 July 2017, at which time the contract was won by another Norwegian company, Airlift AS. Ships exceeding 30 000

gross tons Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weig ...

with petroleum products are required to have a pilot onboard while navigating into the petroleum refineries of

Kårstø Kårstø is an industrial facility located near the village of Susort, along the Boknafjorden, in the municipality of Tysvær in Rogaland county, Norway. The site features a number of natural gas processing plants that refine natural gas and con ...

, Mongstad and

Sture Sture () was a name borne by three distinct but interrelated noble families in Sweden in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. It was originally a nickname, meaning 'haughty, proud' (compare the Swedish word ''stursk'' and the Old Norse ...

. In addition the company has a contract to fly crew to Teekay Petrojarl's ships in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

Værøy

Lufttransport flies the public service obligation between

and

with two daily round trips (one trip on Saturdays and Sundays) with an Agusta Bell AB139.

Fleet

As of August 2017 the Lufttransport fleet includes:

Flight International ''Flight International'' is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", it is the world's old ...

, 3–9 October 2006 * 1 Dornier 228-200 * 1 Dornier 228-200 Next Generation (NG) * 11 Beech King Air B200 * 2 Eurocopter AS332L1 Super Puma * 3 Eurocopter AS365N3 Dauphin * 5

AgustaWestland AW139 The AgustaWestland AW139 is a medium-lift twin-engined helicopter developed and produced by the Anglo-Italian helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland, later wholly owned by Leonardo S.p.A. It is marketed at several different roles, including V ...

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Official website
{{Portal bar, Norway, Companies, Aviation Airlines of Norway Helicopter airlines Air ambulance services in Norway CHC Helikopter Service Airlines established in 1971 Norwegian companies established in 1971