Skyways History and Development
Many people think of Skyways as a very young airline. This is true in the sense that the airline has been known as it is today since the early 80’s acquiring its current name in 1993. However what many people don’t realize is that the Skyways legacy dates back to the 1940’s.
1940
The legendary Mr and Mrs Thuring establish an airline and name it Avia. During the war Avia was based at Fårösund and the main activity for the airline was target practice.
1945
Avia begins to expand its activities and gains ground in agriculture, taxi and post flights as well as pilot training.
1976
Nils Björkman and Lennart Gustavsson who lives in Gotland, purchase Avia.
1984
Gotlandsbolaget (The Gotland Steamship Company), buys Avia and continues to operate the airline under the same name.
1986
Avia begins to operate on a regular basis including routes such as Visby to Kalmar and Norrköping.
The shipping company Salenia which is owned by the Sahlén family take over AMA-flyg. Later this year AMA-flyg changes its name to Salair.
1989
Salair moves to Linköping and purchases three SAAB-340 aircrafts. The operate services between Linköping-Arlanda, Mora-Arlanda and Gävle-Arlanda. Salair also begins to operate its first international route Linköping to Copenhagen.
1992
Competition for domestic travel is opened. Avia and Salair merge. A decision is made to keep the Avia name.
1993
Avia changes the name and becomes Skyways. Salenia becomes the sole owner of the airline.
1995
Skyways becomes the largest domestic carrier in Sweden operating 13 Saab 340’s and 3 Fokker 50 aircrafts. The airline flew to 22 destinations carrying more than 450.000 passengers.
1996
Skyways is considered one of Europe’s most efficient airlines with 300 employees and a turnover of 574 million SEK. 80 % of the airlines 565.000 passengers that travelled this year were business travellers.
1997
Skyways becomes the majority stock holder in Highland Air and increases the amount of routes. SAS and Skyways began cooperating in a program that involved Skways adapting its services to those of SAS becoming an SAS partner. This opened the door to many new routes including two international destinations. The turnover increased by 24% to 709 million SEK compared to 1996. By the end of the year Skyways would fly to 26 destinations and enjoyed 9% of the Swedish domestic market.
1998
Skyways gets an even stronger position by buying the Swedish airline Airborne. SAS becomes a part owner in Skyways and buys 25% of the shares. The Skyways group increases the turnover by 24% to 879 million SEK. The result increased by 40% to 41 million SEK.
Passenger traffic increased by 14% from 1997 to 759.000. By the end of the year Skyways was operating to 28 destinations with 28 aircrafts and 510 employees.
1999
Eight new routes were added this year including Helsinki Gothenburg which became the first route to be operated by a Skyways Jet aircraft. Gothenburg-Brussels and Stockholm-Manchester were also opened this year and flown with Jet aircraft.
Skyways purchased Air Express which meant the Skyways group consisted of four airlines and operated to 35 destinations
Turnover increase by 40% to 1.234 million SEK compared to 1998. The result decreased with 37% to 26 million. For the first time Skyways had more than one million passengers.
2000
The Skyways group continues to grow by purchasing Flying Enterprise. This opens up the possibility to use the Stockholm city airport Bromma. The Skyways group began operating Bromma – Halmstad and Visby.
Highland Air, Airborne and Air Express merge and become Skyways Regional. Flying Enterprise changes its name to Skyways Enterprise. At the same time we change the name of Skyways AB to Skyways Express. The name changes gives The Skyways Group a more clear identity and the whole fleet gets a unified design.
In competition with as many as 100 European regional carriers, Skyways, won the very prestigious award “Regional Airline of the year 2000-2001”. The award was founded by ERA /European Regions Airline Association.
At the end of the year Skyways opens its own Internet Booking sight.
Operating 46 aircraft Skyways flies 1.3 million passengers. A Skyways aircrafts takes off 300 times a day to 34 different destinations.
2001
Air carriers were affected by many events including, a world wide recession and the events of September 11 in which hijacked planes crashed into The World Trade Center in New York, and into the Pentagon in Washington DC. Skyways was no different and was affected in a very negative way.
During the year the demand for airline tickets decreased sharply and Skyways was forced to close down a few routes during the fall. As in the previous year, 1.3 million passengers were flown. Skyways operations decreased to 30 destinations.
2002
Skyways kicked off the New Year by opening two new routes. Kalmar-Copenhagen and Norrköping-Örebro-Oslo. On March 18, two additional routes to Copenhagen, from Karlstad and Örebro were started. Skyways Regional, a company within The Skyways group that operated from the smallest airports with the smallest aircrafts is being sold. With this sale, Skyways is refining its concept to operate the big hubs of Arlanda and Copenhagen.
On October 27, Skyways opened five new routes in one day which consisted of cities that SAS was no longer operating, Västerås-Copenhagen, Norrköping-Copenhagen,
Jönköping-Copenhagen, Skellefteå-Arlanda and Kristianstad-Arlanda.
During 2002 passenger traffic declined to 1.1 million passengers. By the end of the year Skyways was operating to only 29 destinations.
2003
On March 29, Skways began to operate between Arlanda-Dublin with two roundtrips each weekday. On March 31 a new low-fare-concept Skyways KLICK was launched on the Internet booking site. The concept turned into a great success. Skyways broke a new passenger record with 1.342.000 passengers and of those 10% were KLICK-passengers.
2004
Arlanda-Birmingham began operating on March 28. Luleå-Gothenburg is also added this year. Both routes are operated with Embraer 145 jet-aircraft and becomes very popular among the passengers.
March 2004 marked a historic month for Skyways. For the first time SAS and Skyways are operating on the same route, Skellefteå-Arlanda, and the two become competitors.
Skyways Enkel, a new Internet concept is tested on three selected routes. As the name implies, the concept is very simple and now passengers can now book one way tickets on all the fare types.
During the year Skyways Enkel is launched on all Skyways operated routes in Scandinavia which means that our passengers can now fly ticketless in all of Scandinavia.
Turning over 1.58 million SEK, passenger traffic declined from 2003 to 1.185.000 passengers.
2005
Due to record high oil-prices and fewer passenger loads, Skyways is forced to terminate service operated by SAAB 340 and Embraer 145 leaving the airline only Fokker 50 making Skyways a more efficient carrier. Skyways work force is decreased by 50% and non profitable routes are shut down.
New routes like Hemavan-Arlanda and Arlanda-Kuressaare are opened.
Skyways Kontinental a new product is launched allowing passengers the opportunity to book tickets from local Swedish airports to 30 destinations all over Europe. Skyways, turns 1.3 million SEK carrying 900.000 passengers.
2006
In August, Skwyays begins to operate the AVRO RJ 100. a 112 passenger aircraft that allows bigger passenger load to fly the Halmstad-route.
Skyways opens a relationship with the magazine Affärsvärlden, and can now offer the passengers a new onboard magazine every week. The magazine contains the Skyways magazine SKY.
The number of Skyways partners are increasing and more passengers choose to book hotel, rental cars, taxi and restaurant in connection with their airline ticket.
