| |
|
| |
About
Widerøe's Flyveselskap
Widerøe's Flyveselskap was started in 1934. The
first
years they were occupied with taxi flights, ambulance service, flight training
and photo survey. Their main office was then situated at Ingierstrand
outside Oslo - well situated for a float plane/flying boat company. In the 1950s
Northern
Norway was getting more important for Widerøe - still using float planes/flying
boats. The first land based scheduled service was started in 1968 with their
flights
between
Bodø (BOO) and Trondheim (TRD). From 1970 onward Widerøe was synonym
with
STOLports and deHavilland Canada aircraft - starting with Twin Otters, continuing
with
Dash-7s and today's all Dash-8 fleet. The ownership of the company has changed
hands over time - from the original five enthusiasts i 1934, included the man
that
gave
the company its name - Viggo Widerøe, and today's 100% of the shares are
owned
by SAS.
Widerøe serves today 35 destinations within Norway
and
7
Northern
European destinations (2 summer destinations) and have over 300 departures
every
day with their Dash-8s. |
Key
Figures 2005
| Average
flight distance, scheduled |
222
km / 138 miles |
| Block hours aircraft |
6.7 hours/day |
| Number
of passengers, scheduled |
1,784,000 |
| Number
of flights, scheduled |
98,550 |
| Cabin factor |
51.9% |
| Punctuality
(within 15 minutes) |
85.8% |
| Number
of employees |
1,331 |
| Operating
revenue |
2,831
million SEK |
| Internet
booking |
33% |
Resources
The
Widerøe
fleet
list - in Adobe Acrobat format
Map
of the Network
| Radio
call sign |
Wideroe |
| IATA
code |
WF |
| ICAO
code |
WIF |
|
| Today
Widerøe have the different series of deHavilland
Canada Dash-8 in their fleet. The -100 series
is mainly used between STOLports and connecting
the STOLports (airports with around 800 meter
long runways) with larger airports. The -300
and -Q400 series are used on flights between
larger domestic airports and to international
destinations. In other words you need to visit
one of Norwegian airports to get a photo of the
smallest Dash-8. The latest Widerøe colour
scheme was introduced in June 2002, but still
a number of WF aircraft have the old colour
schemes or the intermediate scheme applied on
a number of -300 in the summer of 2001. Below
I will try to show you the different Dash-8 series
and the colour schemes. |
DHC
Dash-8-100
LN-WII
Dash-8-103 was delivered to Widerøe
on 4 August 1994, and was named after the northern
most point of mainland Norway - Nordkapp (North
Cape). The photo was taken a late afternoon
at Trondheim Airport, Værnes (TRD) the
first Saturday
in
February
2005, and the aircraft was heading for one
of the STOLports north of Trondheim. LN-WII
has got the latest colour scheme.
LN-WIR has one of the older
colour schemes - pre 2001 - but this aircraft
has the internet
address added to promote the Widerøe
website instead of the usual WIDERØE
included along the cheat line. This photo
was shot in the
summer of 2003.
|
DHC
Dash-8-300
LN-WFC
was one of the aircraft repainted in the summer
of 2001, the cheat line
has gone and white background colour is more light
grey as you see if you compare with the white colour
applied to radar dome. LN-WFC is here taking off
from Trondheim Airport, Værnes (TRD) heading
for Sandefjord Airport, Torp (TRF) in February
2005.
LN-WFP landing at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen (OSL)
runway 01R after a short trip from Gothenburg Airport, Landvetter (GOT) on 20
May 2004. The aircraft wear the oldest colours
that the Dash-8-300 ever had - the three
green coloured cheat line. There aren't many
left of these, hope you have the camera ready
when you see one.
An
even rarer bird is the latest Q300 added to the
fleet - LN-WFT. It was registered
on 10 September 2004 and this photo was taken
16 days later at Oslo Airport. Notice one
of the bird wings (the light green) is missing
on the tail. The aircraft still is flying
around in the same colour scheme, except
it now
got a complete tail bird and the text "Member
of the SAS Group" is added above the
windows on the forward fuselage together
with a dark
blue SAS logo.
|
DHC
Dash-8-Q400
The
Q400 LN-WDA arriving to Trondheim (TRD) from
Copenhagen (CPH). All Q400s today
in use by Widerøe have the newest colour scheme,
but
as they waited on the delivery of the first
Q400 from November 2001, an all white
LN-WDZ (MSN 4016) on short time lease was used.
The LN-WDZ stayed by Widerøe until end
of March 2003 - part of the time in storage
at Sandefjord Airport (TRF) as parts were used
to hold the other three Q400s in the air (Bombardier
had problems to supply enough spare parts for
the Q400 at that time).
LN-WDA
taking off from Værnes (TRD) heading back
to Copenhagen this Saturday afternoon in February
2005.
This
is a historic picture from Manchester International
Airport (MAN) taken on 2 May 2004 showing LN-WDB.
At that time Widerøe flew between Bergen
(BGO) and
Manchester
- the BGO-MAN-BGO flights were closed on
23 October 2004.
|
|
|
2006/12/11 |
|
|
