Atlantic Airways 30 years: They worked in secret to found a Faroese airline
A confluence of determination, luck and chance was the reason Atlantic Airways was founded in 1987 and then made its first flight in 1988. <br />“Had Atlantic Airways not been founded then, I doubt we would have had a Faroese airline at all today,” says Lasse Klein, who was a government minister at the time and who led the drive to establish a Faroese national airline
1 January 1
Words by Ingrid Bjarnastein
After the Løgting election in 1984, Javnaðarflokkurin, Tjóðveldisflokkurin, Sjálvstýrisflokkurin and Kristiligi Fólkaflokkurin formed a coalition that took office at the beginning of 1985. The late Atli P. Dam was Prime Minister, and one of the seats in the government therefore fell to Lasse Klein of Sjálvstýrisflokkurin, then just 34 years old and from Klaksvík. He became Minister of Transport.
One of the landmarks still standing from the time when Lasse Klein was a minister is the Faroese airline Atlantic Airways, which was established with him at the helm.
“The particular thing about the aviation question was that nothing was written into the coalition agreement about founding a Faroese airline. The concession to fly to and from the Faroe Islands expired on 1 October 1985, and when it dawned on me that we could get a share in this, I began to look into aviation and quickly found that it was necessary to get started at once,” Lasse Klein recalls.
Worked in secret
Work had in fact been going on for a long time to get an agreement in place on flights out of the Faroe Islands, but it had still not succeeded. Delegations had been to Denmark several times with the same intention, but came back empty-handed. The cost was quite simply too high.
Lasse Klein set up a secret working group of men with particular insight into aviation. The group was made up of Jógvan Simonsen, head of the helicopter service; Eyðfinnur Jacobsen, lawyer; Carl V. Weihe, state-authorised public accountant; Jóhan Restorff Jacobsen, director of Strandfaraskip Landsins; and Finnbogi Niclasen, airport director.
“For me it was a deliberate choice to staff the working group from outside the central administration, so that there was peace to work outside the system and with precisely these people. Working outside the system mattered a great deal, because until then the outcome of the negotiations and the treatment the matter had otherwise received had ended in a bitter feud between several parties, and I did not want to risk that,” says Lasse Klein, who adds that it is perfectly clear to him that such a way of working would not have been possible today.
The working group held several secret meetings both in the Faroe Islands and in Denmark, and Lasse Klein believes it would hardly have succeeded if these first steps had not been kept secret.
Over the line with Cimber
Although more than 30 years have now passed since Lasse Klein was Minister of Transport, he remembers this time very well.
“The time was very turbulent. But my conclusion was that if we could get a good enough agreement in place, the political authorities would be forced to take a position on the aviation question. And that was precisely my aim all along: to get the political system to take a position,” Lasse Klein explains.
Among the politicians, however, there was little or no interest in the aviation question, and according to Lasse Klein he briefed the government several times while the work was under way, but received no response. Yet Lasse Klein and the working group carried on, and they succeeded in getting a very good agreement in place with Cimber Air.
“We got not just an aviation agreement, but also an agreement on a training scheme that made it possible to train Faroese people in aviation. Pilots, cabin crew and mechanics, and also in financial management, administration and so on. These qualifications did not exist at all in the Faroese education system, and thanks to that scheme many dozens of Faroese people today hold a qualification in aviation,” says the former Minister of Transport.
When Svend Aage Ellefsen, member of the Løgting for Fólkaflokkurin, put a question to Lasse Klein in the Løgting about international aviation on 10 December 1986, the bomb went off.
On 17 December 1986 Lasse Klein answered the question.
“It caused great uproar both in the Løgting and in the government once I had answered the question from Svend Aage Ellefsen. Practically every member of the Løgting and of the government was caught unawares that the matter had come so far, and so were the media,” Lasse Klein recalls, and when the proposal to establish a limited company with the purpose of taking part in air traffic was tabled, only 20 of the 33 members voted in favour.
“What we did was to break new ground; that much we have to say. When we talk about the connection to the outside world - we as Faroese people and as a nation - it was crucial in my view of things that we have full control of being able to maintain that connection ourselves. I never regarded it as satisfactory that this particular matter lay in foreign hands. It was of decisive importance that we secured the route all year round.”
Proud of the result
Although it was in many ways a tough fight, and the government also forced through a fresh round of negotiations with Maersk among others, it was finally possible to convince all parties that the agreement with Cimber Air was the right one. And the rest is history. On 28 March 1988 it became possible to fly from Vágar to Copenhagen with a Faroese airline.
“An airline belongs in public hands, and when I embarked on this process I did not fully realise how much a Faroese airline means to the Faroe Islands. I have never understood the talk among Faroese people about wanting competition in this field. We are a small nation, and having a Faroese airline is immensely important, and it is absolutely essential that the public sector has control of the aviation sector,” Lasse Klein maintains.
“ I am proud of Atlantic Airways. Both of the management and not least of the administration and the staff in general, who have done a tremendous job.”
Many years have passed since Lasse Klein was as active in politics as he was around the time Atlantic Airways was founded. But ever since then he has followed closely what goes on in the company and in aviation in general.
“If it had not succeeded then, I doubt there would have been any Faroese airline at all to this day,” says Lasse Klein finally.