West Atlantic is a holding company for two

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 ...

cargo airline Cargo airlines (or air freight carriers, and derivatives of these names) are airlines mainly dedicated to the transport of cargo by air. Some cargo airlines are divisions or subsidiaries of larger passenger airlines. In 2018, airline cargo traf ...

West Air Sweden West Air Sweden, operating as West Atlantic, is a cargo airline based in Malmö, Sweden. It operates scheduled and ad hoc freight charter services for FedEx, DHL and UPS. It is also contracted to operate mail flights for different postal servi ...

and

West Atlantic UK West Atlantic UK Limited, formerly Atlantic Airlines Ltd is a British cargo airline based at East Midlands Airport. It operates contract and ad hoc cargo flights worldwide, especially within Europe as part of the West Atlantic Group. The compan ...

, with its head office in

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 ...

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 ...

. West Atlantic employ some 650 staff and operate a fleet of 22 aircraft. The airline specializes in the transport of mail, dangerous goods and general cargo.

History

Air Transport Services Group Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) is an American aviation holding company which provides air cargo transportation and related services to domestic and foreign air carriers and other companies that outsource their air cargo lift requirements. A ...

, Inc. announced on 9 December 2013 an agreement to acquire a 25 percent equity interest in West Atlantic. This investment meant the

Boeing 767-200 The Boeing 767 is an American wide-body aircraft developed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The aircraft was launched as the 7X7 program on July 14, 1978, the prototype first flew on September 26, 1981, and it was certified on ...

being added into West Atlantic's fleet. The 767-200 with registration SE-RLA made its first flight on 26 March 2015 and its first commercial flight on the night between 6 and 7 April, with two further 767-200s joining the fleet later in 2015. On 20 June 2017, West Atlantic announced it will take delivery of four leased Boeing 737-800(BCF) from

GE Capital Aviation Services GECAS (GE Capital Aviation Services) was an Irish–American commercial aviation financing and leasing company. AerCap acquired the company from GE Capital on November 1, 2021. GECAS was the largest commercial airline leasing/financing company ...

, with the aircraft being delivered between 2017 and 2019. On 10 April 2019, LUSAT Air S.L. signed an agreement with West Atlantic to become the new majority shareholder in return for a €20 million cash injection.

Fleet

As of October 2022, the West Atlantic group fleet includes the following aircraft:

Accidents and incidents

* On 8 January 2016, a West Atlantic CRJ200 operating as SWN294 from Oslo to Tromsø crashed close to the Norwegian border, by Lake

Akkajaure Akkajaure (from smj, Áhkájávrre) is one of the largest reservoirs in Sweden. It lies at the headwaters of the Lule River in Norrbotten County, in Swedish Lappland, within the Stora Sjöfallet national park. The lake formed after the cons ...

in the Swedish Lapplandsfjällen. The two pilots, a Captain aged 42 and First Officer aged 34, the only persons on board the aircraft at the time, both died in the accident. * On 22 May 2020, a West Atlantic BAe ATP-F landing at

Birmingham Airport Birmingham Airport , formerly ''Birmingham International Airport'', is an international airport located east-southeast of Birmingham city centre, west-northwest of Coventry slightly north of Bickenhill village, in the Metropolitan Borou ...

in high winds failed to maintain appropriate aileron control resulting in a

runway excursion A runway excursion is a runway safety incident where an aircraft makes an inappropriate exit from the runway. Runway excursions include runway overruns, where an aircraft is unable to stop before it reaches the end of the runway. Runway excursio ...

. The aircraft left the runway for 450m on the landing roll but suffered no damage. *On 19 January 2021, a West Atlantic 737-400 freighter suffered a very hard landing at

Exeter Airport Exeter Airport , formerly ''Exeter International Airport'', is an international airport located at Clyst Honiton in East Devon, close to the city of Exeter and within the county of Devon, South West England. Exeter has a CAA Public Use Aero ...

, causing many creases in the fuselage. The aircraft was written off and scrapped on-site.

References

{{reflist Cargo airlines Airline holding companies