   braathens asa, until 1997 braathens south american & far east airtransport a/s and trading as braathens safe, was a norwegian airline which operated from 1946 until it merged with scandinavian airlines norway (sas) in 2004 to become sas braathens. for most of its history, braathens was the largest domestic airline in norway, but did not operate an international network for many years. its main hubs were oslo airport, fornebu and later oslo airport, gardermoen, and briefly stockholm-arlanda airport. the airline operated 118 aircraft of 15 models, the majority of aircraft which have been variations of the boeing 737. braathens served 53 airports and 50 cities with scheduled services through its history. the airline was founded in 1946 by ludvig g. braathen and originally used a fleet of douglas dc-4 aircraft on routes to the far east and south africa. from 1954 the airline was forced to operate all its scheduled flights domestically, where it used de havilland herons. braathens safe retained an international charter service using the dc-3 and dc-6. as new domestic airports were built, braathens safe and sas were awarded each their share of monopoly route concessions. the fokker f-27 was introduced in 1958, but was phased out with the delivery of the fokker f-28 and boeing 737-200 jets from 1969. after a two-year use of boeing 767 aircraft, braathens operated an all-boeing 737 fleet from 1986. increased domestic competition on routes started from 1987, along with braathens safe again starting international routes. by 1994 the fleet had been replaced with boeing 737-400 and -500 and domestic deregulation of the airline market was introduced. braathens followed up by listing itself on the oslo stock exchange, joining an alliance with dutch airline [[
1946_establishments_in_Norway 2004_disestablishments_in_Norway Air_FranceaKLM Airlines_disestablished_in_2004 Airlines_established_in_1946 Braathens Companies_formerly_listed_on_the_Oslo_Stock_Exchange Defunct_airlines_of_Norway Former_IATA_members SAS_Group_members