AB Aerotransport (ABA) was a Swedish government-owned airline which operated during the first half of the 20th century and was merged into what would become the

SAS Group SAS AB (Scandinavian Airlines System Aktiebolag), trading as SAS Group, is an airline holding company headquartered in the SAS Frösundavik Office Building in Solna Municipality, Sweden. It is the owner of the airlines Scandinavian Airlines and S ...

. ABA was established on 27 March 1924 under the name Aktiebolaget Aerotransport by Carl and Adrian Florman together with Ernst Linder, John Björk och Johan Nilsson.Fälting, Lars.
Högtflygande planer i debatten om Arlanda 1946
. Working papers in transport and communication history, 1104-6988 ; 1995:4. Research Group "Transports and Communications in Perspective", Depts. of Economic History, Umeå Univ. and Uppsala Univ. Its first flight was on 2 June 1924 between

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. Needing more funds, it became government-owned in 1935. ABA was merged with Swedish Intercontinental Airlines (SILA) in 1948 and airline operations would ultimately be merged into the international

in 1950.

History

In 1925 the company started a route between Stockholm and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in co-operation with

Lufthansa Deutsche Lufthansa AG (), commonly shortened to Lufthansa, is the flag carrier of Germany. When combined with its subsidiaries, it is the second- largest airline in Europe in terms of passengers carried. Lufthansa is one of the five founding m ...

and a mail route connecting Stockholm with

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Passenger service to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

was begun in the late 1930s. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

ABA tried to maintain their network, but in 1941 the route to Moscow was closed, and the route to Berlin ceased in 1945. During the war ABA had a courier flight between Stockholm and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. After the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

of Europe ABA started new routes to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and

Prestwick Prestwick ( gd, Preastabhaig) is a town in South Ayrshire on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland about southwest of Glasgow. It adjoins the larger town of Ayr to the south on the Firth of Clyde coast, the centre of which is about south, an ...

. In June 1948, after a Swedish report, the government-owned ABA and privately owned SILA were merged on a 50-50 basis, to form a new airline named ABA. SILA had become the Swedish part of SAS in 1946, which at that time only a co-operation between DDL in

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

and DNL in

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 ...

. However, on October 1, 1950, representatives from the three airlines signed a consortium agreement where they appointed SAS to run the airline operations and the three national airlines only to be holding companies.

Fleet

ABA was the first airline with three-engine passenger aircraft when in 1925, ABA bought three

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Junkers G.24 The Junkers G 24 was a German three-engine, all-metal low-wing monoplane passenger aircraft manufactured by Junkers from 1925. Junkers F 24 was the designation for single-engine versions of the same aircraft. Design and development The increa ...

from

AB Flygindustri AB Flygindustri was a Swedish aircraft manufacturer during the interwar period from 1924 to 1935. The company was founded by Carl and Adrian Florman and based in Malmö, Sweden AB Flygindustri was an offshoot of AB Aerotransport AB Aerotranspo ...

. During the following years ABA used and bought several different aircraft (e.g. Junkers F.33, F.34, G.23, G.24). For the longer routes a

Fokker Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...

F.XII was used. In 1937 ABA became the second

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an operator of the

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

after

KLM KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...

. This opened opportunities to fly "longer flights" for example to

. In 1939 ABA started to mark their aircraft with Swedish Air Lines. The aircraft used in the airline's first flight, a

Junkers F.13 The Junkers F 13 was the world's first all-metal transport aircraft, developed in Weimar Republic, Germany at the end of World War I. It was an advanced Cantilever#Aircraft, cantilever-wing monoplane, with enclosed accommodation for four passenge ...

registered as S-AAAC and later as SE-AAC, is now on display at the National Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm.

Accidents and incidents

;August 31, 1932: An AB Aerotransport

me (SE-AAE, ''Svealand'') crashed at Tubbergen, Netherlands while attempting a forced landing following engine failure, killing the two crew. ;June 9, 1936: An AB Aerotransport Fokker F.XXII (SE-ABA, ''Lappland'') crashed while attempting an emergency landing at Bulltofta Airport following triple engine failure, killing one of 13 on board. The pilot had opened the throttles instead of the propeller pitch control while the engines were in weak mixture, causing the engines to quit. ;August 27, 1943: An AB Aerotransport Douglas DC-3-268 (SE-BAF, ''Gladan'') crashed off Hirtstals, Denmark, killing all seven on board; the aircraft was probably shot down by a German fighter. No wreckage has ever been found. ;October 22, 1943: An AB Aerotransport Douglas DC-3-268 (SE-BAG, ''Gripen'') was attacked by a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88; the pilot attempted a forced landing at sea, but the aircraft struck cliffs of Hallo Island, killing 13 of 15 on board. ;December 4, 1945: An AB Aerotransport Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress struck a hill in Stallarholmen while on approach to Bromma Airport, killing the six crew. The aircraft had been flying too low during the approach. ;August 9, 1947: An AB Aerotransport Douglas DC-3F (SE-BAY) overran the runway on landing at Bulltofta Airport, killing one of five on board. ;October 26, 1947: AB Aerotransport Flight 1629, a

Douglas DC-4-1009 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960s. ...

(SE-BBG, ''Sunnan''), struck

Mount Hymettus Hymettus (), also Hymettos (; el, Υμηττός, translit=Ymittós, pronounced ), is a mountain range in the Athens area of Attica, East Central Greece. It is also colloquially known as ''Trellós'' (crazy) or ''Trellóvouno'' (crazy mountain) ...

while on approach to Hassani Airport, killing all 44 on board.

References

{{Authority control Defunct airlines of Sweden Airlines established in 1924 Airlines disestablished in 1996 SAS Group Swedish companies established in 1924 Swedish companies disestablished in 1996

History

Fleet

Accidents and incidents

See also

References