Short History of Scandinavian Routes from Liverpool Airport.
Feb 21, 2019 17:07:51 GMT 1
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Post by viscount on Feb 21, 2019 17:07:51 GMT 1
SCANDINAVIAN DESTINATIONS FROM LIVERPOOL AIRPORT
- A SHORT HISTORY.
- A SHORT HISTORY.
Brian Jones
The link between the people of Liverpool and Scandinavia, particularly Norway goes way back. To claim the connection goes back to the time of the Vikings is true (as reflected in a number of Merseyside village names eg Croxteth, Childwall) but hardly relevant here. However, the connection between the Port of Liverpool, trade with the Baltic regions and Scandinavian seamen is deeply etched into Liverpool’s economic and cultural history. Throughout the 1950s and indeed well into the 1970s Norwegian ship crew changes took place at Liverpool bringing regular charter flights into Liverpool Airport using mainly Braathens SAFE, Fred Olsen but also Polaris Air Transport and Wideroe with aircraft such as the Dakota, Commando, Skymaster, DC-6, Viscount and Friendship involved. Initially included the crews of whalers, but mainly cargo ship crews were involved ferried from or to Norwegian Airports such as Jarlsborg, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Oslo/Fornebu and occasionally Copenhagen.
However the main content of this article is not about ad hoc passenger charters, but about scheduled air service links.
K.L.M.
It was though during the summer of 1939 that the first through route by air from Liverpool to Oslo was established by K.L.M. routing from Speke via Ringway and Amsterdam without an aircraft change through to Kristiansand and on to Oslo, a trip of some 7 to 8 hours by Douglas DC-2, Lockheed 14 or maybe occasional Douglas DC-3. The service was halted by the outbreak of World War II and was not resumed after the end of hostilities. K.L.M. also offered connections at Amsterdam onward to Copenhagen, Malmo, Stockholm or Helsinki for passengers from Liverpool or Manchester.
DAN AIR
In the early 1960’s Dan Air connected Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle with an air service, later adding in Cardiff and extending onwards twice a week to Kristiansand (1960s spelling) using Douglas Dakota aircraft. Kristiansand is a coastal town near the SW tip of Norway, a very considerable distance from Oslo. In 1965 and 1966 the Dakota operated Bristol-Cardiff-Liverpool-Newcastle-Kristiansand out in the morning, back in the late afternoon, the service operating on a Monday and Friday and became well used connecting companies with business in the SW, NW and NE England with Southern Norway. The route ceased sometime likely during 1966 or 1967. It was then operated again via Newcastle by Ambassador on Monday and Friday by Ambassador 26th May to 15th September 1969. The service did not repeat in 1970 due to a combination of rising fuel prices, and inflation.
NO CONNECTION
During the 1980’s Liverpool based Alexander Towing, had a number of tugs based in Denmark and built up a small fleet of aircraft at Speke, including a Navajo and two BN-2A Islanders which regularly flew between Esbjerg and Liverpool. This ended with the aircraft being absorbed into Euroair Air Transport on a take-over. The aircraft never operated as an airline from Liverpool though. Mention included as an illustration of the maritime links between Liverpool, Norway and Denmark.
When EasyJet settled on Liverpool as their second base, having commenced Liverpool services in 1997, it was hoped they would select a Scandinavian capital link following their initial destination choices of Amsterdam and Nice, but they concentrated their network development into Southern and then Eastern Europe, and have ignored the potential of serving Scandinavian destinations. It fell to Ryanair following their creation of a Liverpool base in 2005 to seize the initiative and launch into Scandinavia.
RYANAIR
Ryanair’s first LJLA route to Scandinavia was their 15th from Liverpool and operated to Oslo/Torp airport, the inaugural flight operated by Boeing 737-800 EI-DAX on 27th September 2005 with a frequency for winter 2005/06 of 7 flights weekly. However a year later for winter 2006/07 this dropped to 4 weekly (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun) and with slight variations remained that way until winter 2013/14 with a drop to 3 weekly apart from the Christmas period. Signs that all was not well with Ryanair’s commitment to the route was evident when no flights were scheduled for the whole of June and July 2014, but in August returned to 3 weekly (Mon, Wed, Fri) and stayed on those days for several years until the route was withdrawn and moved to Manchester. The last Liverpool service was flown on 28th October 2016 using Boeing 737-800 EI-EST. The first of Ryanair’s three LJLA-Scandinavia routes was the one that lasted the longest, connecting Liverpool and Norway’s Capital for 11 years.
Ryanair’s second Scandinavian route from Liverpool served Stockholm, Sweden’s Capital City, using Skavsta Airport. The inaugural flight was on 31st October 2007 at a frequency of 4 flights per week (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun), being reduced to just twice a week from Summer 2009 (Mon, Fri), however for winters 2010/11 and 2011/12 this raised to three per week. The service ended on 24th March 2012, after just four and a half years. Clearly, Ryanair were after the leisure and short-break market, but twice weekly did not provide travellers with sufficient flexibility, nor did serving the outlying Skavsta Airport help. As a destination the route should have worked better.
The third and shortest lived of the Ryanair Scandinavian routes from Liverpool was a second route from Oslo. While it may seem strange to open a second route from the same city, Oslo/Rygge serves a geographically different market from Oslo/Torp. When Ryanair first opened the route Liverpool to Torp, they were intent on using ‘low cost’ airfields rather than any well established ‘high cost’ existing City airport. So Oslo/Gardermoen, to the north and closer to the City of Oslo was ignored and Sandefjord/Torp a long way south of the city, on the west bank of Oslo Fjord was used. Oslo/Rygge is marginally closer to Oslo City, but is on the east bank of Oslo Fjord, which splits Norway south of Oslo in two. While residents of the city can use either airport, residents to the south and west use Torp; residents to the region south and east use Rygge, which also serves the sparse population of the Swedish Lakeland region. The inaugural service operated on 31st October 2010 at a twice weekly frequency (Fri, Sun) and operated for just 3 airline seasons until ending March 2012. The flight was flown by a Rygge based aircraft and Ryanair closed their Rygge base at the end of winter 2011/12. With little notice the service was re-introduced twice weekly (Fri, Sun) for the winter of 2012/13, presumably to capitalise on the attraction to Norwegians of UK winter weekend Premiership football matches. However the last Ryanair Liverpool to Oslo/Rygge flight operated on 29th March 2013.
NORWEGIAN AIR
The next chapter of services between Liverpool and Scandinavia came from an unexpected quarter. Norwegian airline Norwegian had been expanding rapidly between Scandinavia and destinations all around Continental Europe. They started to look towards the UK for further expansion into the heartlands of EasyJet and Ryanair. They selected Copenhagen for a service to Liverpool, using the City’s main international airport, Kastrup. Seemingly a very good choice, capable of attracting two-way, business and leisure traffic. The inaugural flight was operated by Boeing 737-800 LN-DYW on 5th April 2013. Initial frequency was 3 per week (Mon, Wed, Fri) reducing to 2 per week (Mon, Fri) in July and early August, before returning to 3 per week. For the winter 2013/14 frequency reduced to 2 per week (Mon, Fri) again. The end to the service came on 28th March 2014, operated by LN-NGL, after just one year. While loads were reasonable, they were not terrific. A lack of advertising and publicity were partly to blame, as was the name ‘Norwegian’ being little known to British customers, now so used to just consulting EasyJet and Ryanair’s websites when planning a short city break. If Norwegian had ‘hit’ Liverpool with five or six destinations at once, with the advertising to support a number of routes, making their name better known around the North West, then the outcome may well have been different.
WIDEROE
When Ryanair moved the Oslo/Torp service to Manchester at the start of Winter 2016/17, that left Liverpool once again with no Scandinavian link. However during summer 2018, an airline with a long history, although far better known for operating regional flights within Norway and around Scandinavia, announced a twice weekly service (Fri, Mon) between Bergen and LJLA using their new Embraer ERJ-190 jets. Actually Wideroe are no stranger to the enthusiast at LJLA as for several winters their Dash 8 aircraft have called on weekend inbound city and match break charters from various Norwegian cities eg Stavanger, Alesund and Oslo/Gardermoen. The inaugural Bergen flight operated a week earlier than initially announced, on Friday 10th August 2018 using ERJ-190 LN-WEA – absolutely no co-incidence that this was the weekend of LFC’s first match of the Premiership season and was at Anfield. With a market in Norway from fans of the English Premiership (not just Liverpool games, but those in Manchester too, especially when playing London clubs), and providing an attractive new city-break destination for British tourists, Wideroe will hopefully do well, despite not being a known airline name in Britain. Due to a late announcement, only weeks ahead of the commencement of the service, loads in the initial few weeks were varied, however by Christmas ’18 it would appear that Norwegian LFC fans had sorted out how to acquire tickets and how to get two games out of a week holiday, plus a growing number of people from Britain are discovering a good way for a long week-end or a short week in Norway. Just prior to Christmas the times of flights were altered and a Dash 8-Q400 employed due to Wideroe leasing out one of its Embraer jets for the final winter months. The final service of the winter ‘18/19 will Monday 13th May, just after the last day of Premiership season, no doubt that LFC v Wolves match at Anfield will be a major attraction. While the first flight of winter ‘19/20 season will be on the first weekend of the new Premiership season in August. As word of the service has got around during the first winter of operation, so the second winter should be much easier to fill, especially as frequency has been raised to three weekly, with the additional rotation on a Sunday evening.
RYANAIR RETURNS
Although announced for the previous year, but never commenced, Ryanair launched a new Scandinavian route on Monday 1st April 2019, connecting Liverpool and Copenhagen. The service to operate twice weekly on Monday and Fridays. The inaugural service was flown by EI-GDX Boeing 737-8 as FR4207/4208.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
In researching the initial and closing paragraphs of this article consulted Google. As a search tried “Liverpool’s cultural connection with Norway”, Google’s first page came up with one historical/cultural connection nordicliverpool.co.uk/?page_id=181 and a whole stack of football links eg www.lifeinnorway.net/the-norwegian-obsession-with-english-football/ and www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/11662203/British-football-fans-youll-never-walk-alone-in-Norway.html Clearly the cultural ties have shifted focus from the Port of Liverpool and the Baltic Triangle to the Airport of Liverpool, English Premiership football and Anfield.
THE CREDITS:
My thanks to the work of ‘8miles27’ and ‘LPL’ on nwan forum, Keith Hardwick’s Stats column in ‘09/27’, Tony Williams‘s Airline Schedules section in ‘09/27’, the paper NWAN magazine – without those sources all the essential details would be missing!
This article first appeared in FoLA’s ‘09/27’ summer 2018 and repeated here with minor changes/updating and more detail in the annual passenger figures.
Last updated, end July 2019.