West Air Sweden
Malmö
West Air Sweden is a Swedish cargo airline based in Gothenburg and based on the Lidköping airport. It is a subsidiary of West Atlantic Freight Group AB.
History
Origin of West Air 1962 was founded by the Swedish merchant and coffee importer Anders Löfberg that a Piper PA -31 took advantage of his products to market quickly and efficiently within Scandinavia.
In 1995 the company was bought by the present owners Göran Berglund and Gustaf Thureborn and renamed West Air Sweden. Initially flew West Air also scheduled passenger flights, but these were abandoned in 1997 after the company received a contract for the night mail transport by the Swedish Post. After that, the focus was on night flights shipments with smaller cargo aircraft as the Hawker Siddeley HS 748 The route network and fleet have been enlarged continuously. New customers, such as FedEx, DHL, TNT, UPS and since 2006, the Norwegian Post were acquired.
Beginning of 2000, 60 % of flights have already been conducted in Central Europe. This meant that West Air, a new subsidiary named West Air Luxembourg and crews based in Luxembourg and Flugleiterzentale founded to be closer to the customers.
Both companies operate along the largest BAe ATP freighter fleet in Europe. The HS748 originally used were gradually replaced by converted to freighters ATPs.
In October 2008 it was announced that the parent company of West Air Europe with the UK air freight company Atlantic Airlines, also an operator of several ATPs, under the name of West Atlantic together closes.
In 2011 it was decided to transfer the operational mode of the West Air Sweden successively to the Luxembourg subsidiary West Air Luxembourg.
Destinations
West Air Sweden mainly operates freight lines and ad- hoc charter and freight transportation and overnight express flights for the Swedish and Norwegian Mail within Scandinavia. Other major customers were FedEx, DHL, TNT and UPS.
Fleet
As of August 2013 the fleet of West Air Sweden from twenty cargo aircraft, which is gradually transferred to West Air Luxembourg is:
- 02 ATR 42-300
- 04 ATR 72-200
- 11 BAe ATP ( 3 operated for West Air Luxembourg and one for Atlantic Airlines )
- Bombardier CRJ200 03