FlyNordic

FlyNordic was a Stockholm-based low-cost airline that grew out of the small domestic carrier Reguljair, founded in 1996. Owned by Finnair from 2003 and sold to Norwegian Air Shuttle in 2007, it was rebranded as Norwegian in April 2008.

How it started

FlyNordic began life as Reguljair, established in 1996. According to Wikipedia, which cites Flight International's World Airlines directory, it flew domestic services with an Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante turboprop. Its operating licence was revoked on 14 November 2000, and the business relaunched the following month as Nordic East.

Finnair acquired the company in 2003 and 2004. It set up a new subsidiary, Nordic Airlink Holding, and the airline was rebranded FlyNordic. The original FlyNordic company went bankrupt in 2005, and Nordic Airlink Holding was reorganised and took over the FlyNordic name.

The heyday

FlyNordic was a low-cost carrier based at Stockholm-Arlanda. It flew scheduled and charter services around Scandinavia and Europe. Maunu von Lüders is listed as chief executive. As of January 2008 the fleet consisted of three McDonnell Douglas MD-82s and four MD-83s, seating 149 to 164 passengers. That is the only fleet count we found, so a peak figure is not documented.

Wikipedia's route list for March 2008, which carries a "citation needed" tag, shows flights to Oslo and Bergen (seasonal), and seasonal services to Tallinn, Dublin and Alghero. The list also covers Denmark, France, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Why it merged

Finnair, FlyNordic's owner, sold it to Norwegian Air Shuttle. On 24 April 2007 Norwegian announced that it had bought 100% of the shares. Wikipedia says this made it Scandinavia's largest low-cost airline. Payment came as a shareholding: Finnair received 5% of Norwegian, with an option to raise that to 10% by the end of 2008. FlightGlobal reported that Finnair called the stake a financial decision, because it considered Norwegian's shares undervalued. An analyst quoted there said the deal opened up the Stockholm market, and possibly Helsinki, for Norwegian.

The sources differ slightly on timing. RZjets gives 31 July 2007 as the acquisition date, which may be when the deal closed. It also gives 12 April 2008 for the rebranding, against 5 April in Wikipedia.

The last flight

On 14 March 2008, Norwegian announced that FlyNordic would be rebranded Norwegian after 5 April 2008, to strengthen and unify the brand. Wikipedia gives 5 April 2008 as the end of FlyNordic operations. We found no record of a final flight, its date or its route.

What happened next

FlyNordic became a fully integrated part of Norwegian, and the Swedish operation continued under the Norwegian name. RZjets notes it was branded Norwegian.se. We did not find sourced details of what happened to individual aircraft or staff. Finnair kept its stake in Norwegian, and a Finnair history page describes the stake as 4.8%, making it Norwegian's third-largest shareholder. Norwegian later created a separate Swedish-certificated subsidiary, Norwegian Air Sweden, in 2018. That is a different company from FlyNordic.

Sources: Wikipedia: FlyNordic, FlightGlobal: Norwegian buys FlyNordic, RZjets: Norwegian Air Shuttle, Wikipedia: Norwegian Air Shuttle, Airport World wiki: Finnair