Established in 1987, Blue1 was a Finnish airline owned by  Irish regional airline CityJet and a subsidiary of the Scandinavian airline holding company, the SAS Group. Starting life as Air Botnia, Blue1 operated twin-engine Brazilian general-purpose Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante aircraft on night cargo and passenger flights from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (HEL). In 1993 Blue1 supplemented its unpressurized Bandeirantes with leased British Aerospace Jetstream 31s.

In 1995 Blue1, or Air Botnia as it was still being called, suffered cash flow problems forcing British Aerospace to repossess its Jetstream 31s, leaving Air Botnia on the brink of bankruptcy as it struggled to operate with a reduced fleet. In January 1998, Air Botnia was purchased by the SAS Group who brought in several Swedish-built 30-36 passenger Saab 340 turboprops to replace the repossessed Jetstream 31s.

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Dutch-built Fokker F28 Fellowship jets arrived

Later the same year, Air Botnia received its first Dutch-built Fokker F28 Fellowship twin-engined jets. The decision was then made to replace the F28s  because noise restrictions limited where they could fly. In 2001 British Aerospace 146 (Avro RJ85s) short-haul jets were acquired as a replacement for the Fokker's, and the Saab 340s were replaced with larger Saab 2000s.

In a move designed to give Air Botnia a new identity, the airline was rebranded as Blue1 in January 2004 and joined the Frankfurt-headquartered Star Alliance in the same year, becoming a full member of the world's world largest airline alliance in 2009. The airline alliance was short-lived and only lasted until 2012, when Blue1 became an affiliate of Scandinavian Airlines, most commonly referred to as SAS, in November 2012.

Blue1 was the second-largest Finnish airline

In 2005 Blue1 was the second-largest airline in Finland after Finnair, and the most significant carrier between Finland and other Nordic countries with more than 100 flights a day. In 2006 Blue1 expanded further into Europe with ten new non-stop routes and, in 2008, moved its London operating base from London Stansted Airport (STN) to the much busier London Heathrow (LHR).

In 2009 Blue one offered winter flights to Kittilä Airport (KTT) inside the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland and summer seasonal flights from Helsinki to Biarritz, France and Dubrovnik and Split in Croatia.

SAS took over Blue1 before doing a deal with CityJet

In November 2012, Blue1 became a service provider for SAS, with the Scandinavian multinational taking over all of Blue1s marketing and sales while adding its codeshare SK prefix to all Blue1 flights. Three years later, Blue1 announced that it would sell all of its Boeing 717-200 to Spanish low-cost carrier Volotea and American full-service airline Delta Air Lines and replace the aircraft with Boeing 737-600s from the SAS fleet.

SAS, however, canceled the plan, preferring to give Blue1 Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft that it had acquired from Danish airline Cimber. The same year as Blue1 was being given the former Cimber aircraft, SAS decided to sell the airline to Dublin-headquartered CityJet and allow the Irish company to operate the aircraft on behalf of SAS as part of a more extensive relationship. In 2016, Blue1 was dissolved with all its assets going to its new owner CityJet.

Did you ever fly with Blue1? If so, please tell us about them in the comments.