Widerøe
Norway · WIDEROE · Active
Airline Identity
History
Widerøe was founded on 19 February 1934 by Viggo Widerøe together with Einar Isdahl and Arild Widerøe, initially operating general aviation and seaplane services. From the 1960s and 1970s it pivoted into scheduled regional flying, building a network of short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) airports across northern and western Norway that remain central to its identity today. Ownership passed through several hands over the decades — including the SAS Group and later Torghatten ASA — before Norwegian Air Shuttle acquired the airline, completing the takeover in January 2024.
Current Operations
Widerøe serves around 50 destinations with more than 400 daily departures, operating from bases including Bodø, Tromsø, Bergen and Trondheim. Roughly half of its routes are government-subsidized Public Service Obligation (PSO) flights linking smaller Norwegian communities to larger airports, alongside commercial domestic routes and a small number of international services to Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Its fleet of around 50 aircraft is centered on De Havilland Dash 8 turboprops with a growing number of Embraer E190-E2 jets, and it maintains codeshare and interline agreements with carriers including SAS, Air France-KLM, Finnair and Lufthansa Group rather than belonging to a global alliance itself.
Last verified 2026-09-03· Source: airline public disclosures, company press releases & aviation-industry reporting.