Primera Air Scandinavia

Primera Air Scandinavia A/S, was a Danish airline owned by Primera Travel Group. It provided scheduled and charter passenger services from Northern Europe to more than 40 destinations in the Mediterranean, Middle East and North America. It ceased operations on 1 October 2018.

The airline was originally founded in Iceland as JetX, before it was acquired by Primera Travel Group and renamed to Primera Air Scandinavia. In 2009/2010, operations were transferred to a newly founded Danish unit and the Icelandic air operator's certificate was subsequently cancelled. The airline also owned Primera Air Nordic, a Latvian subsidiary airline established in 2014.

Primera Air Scandinavia began as the airline JetX (IATA: GX, ICAO: JXX) in Iceland. The company was founded in 2003 and received its air operator's certificate in May 2004. Initially the airline flew a single McDonnell Douglas MD-82 but soon added a second one. Between July and October 2004, scheduled flights were carried out of Forlì in Italy. Flights were subsidized by local authorities, but the operation was impaired by non-payment of subsidies and further issues.

In 2006, Primera Travel Group, an Icelandic tourism operator with subsidiaries in several countries, bought a controlling interest and Jón Karl Ólafsson was named chairman in 2008.

In 2009, Primera Travel Group launched Primera Air Scandinavia as a Danish subsidiary, initially equipped with a single Boeing 737 based at Billund Airport, operated by the Icelandic Primera Air. The same year, Primera Air Scandinavia received its own air operator's certificate from the Danish authorities to commence its own operations. Subsequently, the Icelandic unit was closed and all operations were transferred to the Danish airline in 2010.

Initially, Primera Air Scandinavia operated charter flights for major Scandinavian tour operators, but gradually started selling surplus seats as "flight-only" tickets on some of the fixed charter flights in 2013. The continued success allowed Primera to increase both the number of routes and flight frequency, resulting in a mixed charter/scheduled carrier business model. In late 2014 Primera launched 10 new winter and summer direct flight destinations from Iceland, namely, Las Palmas, Tenerife, Alicante, Salzburg, Malaga, Mallorca and Barcelona, Bologna, Crete and Bodrum.

The airline transitioned to mostly scheduled flight operations, although some flights combined charter and regular passengers, and separate full charter flight services were available.

In August 2014 Primera Air Travel Group announced the founding of a new airline as Primera Air Nordic in Latvia, which would be run parallel to Primera Air Scandinavia. Simultaneously, a new Network Control Center was opened in Riga for overseeing all operational matters of the group's airlines. Hrafn Thorgeirsson was appointed as the new CEO of both Primera Air Scandinavia and Primera Air Nordic.