The twice weekly direct scheduled flights between Sumburgh Airport and Oslo started on Sunday 3 July and finished on Sunday 14 August, carrying a total of 820 passengers. This represented an average passenger load factor on each flight of 63%.

This was the second year that Wideroe, a division of SAS, had operated the service with 50-seat Dash 8 regional turboprop aircraft.

Nigel Flaws, Sumburgh Airport manager said: “Wideroe’s summer flights have proved popular again this year and provide a good foundation upon which to establish more east-west air links between Shetland, Scandinavia and the Faroes.

“With the airport’s runway extension due to be completed by next autumn we will have the capacity to extend this type of service. Rather than just a six-week programme of flights we are looking to develop new routes that will operate on a year-round basis because we will be able to handle larger aircraft without weight restrictions. The runway extension will also improve the operation of existing services by again addressing the weight restrictions that apply in certain weather conditions die to the current runway length,” said Mr Flaws.

In the year ending 31 March 2005, Sumburgh Airport handled 116,090 passengers and 8,884 aircraft movements.