Lögberg-Heimskringla - 25.09.1992, Blaðsíða 11

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 25. september 1992 »11
A NATION TAKES TO THE AIR
from favourable during the darkest
months. Despite it’s fairly large work-
load operations at Flugfélag íslands
proved financially difficult, and in 1932
it was decided to close the airline down
and its aircraft were sold abroad.
Another pause of several years
ensued in Icelandic aviation, although
many Icelanders continued to keep in
close contact with world developments,
and visits by foreign pilots also
increased. Among the visitors stopping
over in Iceland on transatlantic flights
during this period was America’s
famous flying ace Charles Lindbeigh, in
July 1933, the same month that an
Italian seaplane squadron arrived led by
Colonel Balbo, Italy’s minister of avia-
tion.
Icelanders vested great hopes in their
country becoming a stopover point for
transatlantic air traffic, to bring them
into closer contact with aviation devel-
opments. During the years between the
wars, foreign airlines began to make
overtures for landing permission and
facilities in Iceland. In 1932, the
Icelandic parliament agreed to grant the
U.S. Transamerican Airlines Corpor-
ation a 75-year authorization to fly to
and from Iceland, and on domestic
routes, with a number of conditions.
One was that the authorization would
cease to be valid if the U.S. airline did
not begin Iceland services before the
end of 1936, and when it failed to begin
its planned flights, permission was with-
drawn. Germany also showed great
interest in flying to Iceland and setting
up facilitjes there.
In 1936, Agnar Kofoed-Hansen
returned to Iceland having recently
qualified as a pilot with the Danish
Navy and worked with the Danish air-
line, Det Danske Luftfartselskap.
Kofoed-Hansen was the third Icelander
to learn to fly. Immediately upon his
return he began campaigning to pro-
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center of the worl
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mote aviation in Iceland, and tried to
attract partners to found a passenger air-
line. Among those whom he
approached was the government, but
with a muted response. It was only
when he involved a businessman from
Akureyri in north Iceland, Vilhjálmur
Þór, director of one of the laigest coop-
erative societies in the country, that his
campaign began to show some success.
Þór persuaded a number of other people
from Akureyri to put up the required
capital to buy an aircraft, and on June
3,1937, Flugfélag Akureyrar was found-
ed. Since then, Iceland has enjoyed a
continuous history of commercial avia-
tion.
The first aircraft purchased by
Flugfélag Akureyrar was a Waco sea-
plane, which made it’s maiden flight in
Iceland on April 29,1938 and it’s first
journey between Reykjavík and
Akureyri on May 2, piloted by Agnar
Kofoed-Hansen. The aircraft was in fre-
quent service and by the end of 1938 it
had made 358 flights, carrying a total of
750 passengers.
Donations to
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A year after the foundation of
Flugfélag Akureyrar, Agnar Kofoed-
Hansen resigned as company pilot to
become Chief of Police in Reykjavík.
He was still to play a large part in
Icelandic aviation, however, when he
later became Iceland’s director of civil
aviation. His position with the airline
was filled by another young pilot, Öm
Ó. Johnson, who was also to exert a
strong influence on Icelandic aviation
during the decades that followed.
In 1910, new shareholders from
Reykjavík entered Flugfélag Akureyrar,
whose name was then changed to
Flugfélag íslands and it’s headquarters
moved to Reykjavík. The airline’s oper-
ations continued to expand over the
following years, as airport facilities
improved. Iceland was occupied by
British military forces on May 10,1940,
and one of their first steps was to build
a large airport in Reykjavík.
A number of young Icelanders head-
ed for Canada in 1941 to enroll for
training at a school for pilots which was
run in Winnipeg by Konráð Jóhannes-
son („Konni”), who was of Icelandic
descent. On qualifying, some of them
worked for the Canadian Air Force
before returning to Iceland. They
retumed to an uncertain future, know-
ing that there were few career opportu-
nities for them in Iceland and with no
guarantee that they would be taken on
by Flugfélag íslands. Three of them;
Alfreð Elíasson, Kristinn Olsen and
Sigurður Ólafsson therefore decided to
buy an aircraft in Canada. Elíasson and
Olsen flew the plane, a Stinson, to New
York, where it was forwarded to
Iceland by ship. When they attempted
to sell the plane to Flugfélag Islands in
return for jobs, and failed to reach an
agreement, the three pilots found back-
ers to form an airline of their own.
Continued next week
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