Fjord fiesta - Scanorama

SAS MOMENTS
Follow
the signs
THIS SIGNPOST WAS put up a few days before SAS became
the world’s first airline to fly over the Arctic en route
to Tokyo. That flight was from Oslo and took 34 hours
and 20 minutes, with stopovers in Bodø, northern Norway,
and Fairbanks and Shemya Island, Alaska. The SAS
Douglas DC-6B “Leif Viking” took off from Oslo on May
24, 1954, and flew via Bodø across the North Pole to
Fairbanks and Shemya Island, landing in Tokyo two days
later. The flight was operated by SAS for Norway’s Ministry
of Defense and was carrying soldiers and a relief
team on their way to a field hospital in Korea. In 1957,
SAS started flying to Tokyo from Copenhagen, a route
still in operation today. The first eight flights on the then
36-hour journey also had a stopover in Bodø. In October
1960, SAS introduced the DC-8-33, reducing the
flight time to 16 hours. The signpost at Bodø Airport still
stands, indicating the old flight times to SAS destinations
around the globe.
HEDVIG ANDERSSON
1954, BODØ AIRPORT, NORWAY
A young SAS passenger checks flight times
on the one-of-a-kind destination board
14 FEBRUARY 2013 SCANORAMA