Airlift AS is a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

operator based at

Førde Airport, Bringeland Førde is a former municipality in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. It was located in the traditional district of Sunnfjord. The administrative center was the town of Førde which in 2016 had 10,255 inhabitants. Other villages in Førde ...

Sunnfjord Sunnfjord ( en, the southern fjord - in contrast to Nordfjord) is a traditional district in Western Norway located in Vestland county. It includes the municipalities of Askvoll, Fjaler, the southernmost parts of Kinn, Sunnfjord, and the souther ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The company operates a combined sixteen

Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil The Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil (or Squirrel), now Airbus Helicopters H125, is a single-engine light utility helicopter originally designed and manufactured in France by Aérospatiale and Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters). In North Americ ...

and

Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma The Airbus Helicopters H215 (formerly Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma) is a four-bladed, twin-engine, medium-size utility helicopter developed and initially produced by the French aerospace company Aérospatiale. It has been subsequently manufactu ...

. In addition to Bringeland, the company has bases at

Kinsarvik Kinsarvik is a village in the municipality of Ullensvang in Vestland county, Norway. The village is located at the end of a small bay at the confluence of the Sørfjorden and the Eid Fjord, where they join to form the main branch of the Hardang ...

Stranda Stranda is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Stranda. Stranda consists of three smaller villages and one larger central villag ...

Ljosland Ljosland is a village in Åseral municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located at the northern end of the Monn river valley, about north of the municipal centre of Kyrkjebygda. The lake Ljoslandsvatnet lies just south of the vil ...

and

Hønefoss Airport, Eggemoen Hønefoss Airport, Eggemoen ( no, Hønefoss flyplass, Eggemoen; ) is a private airport situated at Eggemoen in Ringerike, in Buskerud county Norway. The airport features a asphalt runway aligned 04/22. The airport is owned by Tronrud Engineer ...

. Airlift is owned by

Noordzee Helikopters Vlaanderen The NHV Group, is an operator of civilian helicopters based in Ostend, Belgium. NHV Group is specialized in business-to-business helicopter services, both offshore & onshore. Today, NHV Group states to be the only helicopter service provider with ...

and has about seventy employees.

History

The company was incorporated in 1986 by Torbjørn Lie. It was originally based at

Førde Airport, Øyrane Førde Airport, Øyrane (; no, Førde lufthavn, Øyrane) was a regional airport located at Øyrane in Førde, Norway. The municipal airport first opened as a water aerodrome, receiving a runway in 1970. Scheduled services started the following ...

in the town center. After it was closed, Airlift moved to Bringeland in 1988. It later won contracts to fly

air ambulance Air medical services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air transportation, aeroplane or helicopter, to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes. Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and cri ...

services. In 1996 Airlift won a contract to fly services for the

Governor of Svalbard The governor of Svalbard ( no, Sysselmesteren på Svalbard) represents the Norwegian government in exercising its sovereignty over the Svalbard archipelago (Spitsbergen). The position reports to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, but it maint ...

, with a base at

Svalbard Airport, Longyear Svalbard Airport ( no, Svalbard lufthavn; ) is the main airport serving Svalbard in Norway. It is northwest of Longyearbyen on the west coast, and is the northernmost airport in the world with scheduled public flights. The first airport near Lo ...

. This contract was retained until 2014. Airlift has had a fluctuating ownership situation. It bought the Swedish helicopter operators Helikopterservice in 2001 and Ostermann Helicopter the following year. At this point the group's size peaked at 26 aircraft. Ostermann was sold in 2005. Meanwhile Helicopter Transportation Group secured control full ownership of Airlift in 2002. However, they sold sixty percent to BlueWay Offshore, controlled by the

Reitan Group Reitangruppen is a Norwegian conglomerate comprising five business areas: REMA 1000, Reitan Convenience, Reitan Eiendom (Reitan Real Estate), Uno-X Energi (Uno-X Energy), and Reitan Kapital. Reitangruppen’s head office is at Lade Gaard in Tr ...

, in 2006. Airlift then bought forty percent of

Stryn Stryn is a municipality in the county of Vestland, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordfjord. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Stryn. The municipality is located along the innermost part of t ...

-based Helikopter Utleie in 2007. Airlift is the only company which is contracted by the government for

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

operations.

References

{{Airlines of Norway Airlines of Norway Air ambulance services in Norway Airlines established in 1986 1986 establishments in Norway Companies based in Sogn og Fjordane Sunnfjord