Faroe Island-based Atlantic Airways has excelled in mastering unaccommodating operational challenges

At first glance Atlantic Airways has the perfect life: it is majority state owned and it has no competition in its home market. It is the sole airline providing air service to and from the Faroe Islands since now defunct Maersk Air stopped serving the country in 2004.

However, a deeper look into the small Faroese carrier's operations quickly reveals that its situation is not enviable; it is quite the opposite, as it operates in an extremely challenging environment that includes a mountainous topography allowing only narrow and offset approach paths, extreme seasonality and the prevailing volatile North Atlantic weather. Cancellations or diversions due to the low cloud base, unfavourable winds or snowfall can cause knock-on disruptions for days at a time as the nearest alternates to Vágar Airport, the airline's base, are in Iceland, Scotland or Norway.