OLT Ostfriesische Lufttransport

Anyone who grew up on the East Frisian coast knows the picture: a small, angular high-wing aircraft rattling over the Wadden Sea toward Borkum. For decades, that was “the OLT” for many people. The Ostfriesische Lufttransport (East Frisian Air Transport) began as an air taxi in Emden, grew into a regional airline based in Bremen and most recently flew Fokker 100 jets through half of Europe – before it went under in 2013 as OLT Express Germany. This page tells the story and shows you how to recognize OLT aircraft in old photos and logbooks.

OLT at a glance

OLT was a German regional airline whose roots lie in Emden. On November 1, 1958, Martin Dekker and Jan Janssen founded the Ostfriesische Lufttaxi there. The idea was simple: get passengers quickly from the mainland to the North Sea islands, where ferries depend on the tides and take a long time. The first aircraft was a KZ VII, a small Danish high-wing aircraft. By the end of the 1960s, the company had five aircraft and had already completed over 13,000 flights.

In the 1970s, the air taxi became the Ostfriesische Lufttransport GmbH, OLT for short. New shareholders came in, including the AGIV, and scheduled service began with connections from Emden to Bremen and Hamburg. Later, OLT belonged to the Emden shipping company AG Ems, which also operates ferries to the islands – so ship and aircraft came from one source.

With the takeover of the Bremen-based Roland Air in 1990, the focus shifted to Bremen. Scheduled and charter operations developed there, while Emden remained the home of the island flyers. The airline thus led a double life for a long time: small piston twins on routes of a few minutes and, at the same time, turboprops and jets in European regional traffic.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code OL: appeared in the flight number, that is, in schedules, tickets and on departure boards.
• ICAO code OLT: used in the flight plan filed with air traffic control – the same letters as the short form of the company name.
• Callsign OLTRA: this is how crews identified themselves on the radio.

Because the abbreviation OLT and the ICAO code are identical, attribution in old records is usually easy. Caution applies only for the period from late 2011: under the OLT Express brand, Polish sister companies also flew that had little in common with the East Frisian OLT.

The island flights: Emden, Borkum, Heligoland

Island flying was the core of OLT. From Emden, the airline flew to the East Frisian islands, including Borkum, Juist and Norderney, and out to Heligoland. At times, OLT was also present in Bremerhaven, Heide, on Borkum and on Heligoland.

Emden airfield (ICAO EDWE, IATA EME) lies about five kilometers northeast of the city center and is approved for aircraft up to 14 tonnes. For island hoppers that is plenty – the real challenge awaits at the destination. On Heligoland-Düne, for example, the main runway measures only 480 meters after its extension, with no overrun areas. Such airfields demand aircraft that can take off and land on a very short distance.

The Britten-Norman Islander

That is exactly what the Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander is built for. The British high-wing aircraft first flew in 1965 and was built well over 1,000 times. It has two piston engines, fixed nose-wheel landing gear and room for up to nine passengers. Large flaps and plenty of engine power give it short-field capability: for takeoff and landing over a 15-meter obstacle at sea level it needs only around 300 to 370 meters, if necessary even on unpaved surfaces.

For the North Sea islands, that is ideal. The Islander is robust, easy to maintain and needs no elaborate infrastructure. There is also a point spotters love: it looks like no other aircraft. The angular fuselage, the high-mounted engines and the rigid landing gear make it unmistakable even from a distance.

Besides the Islander, over the years OLT used other small types, including the Cessna 207, Cessna 402, Cessna 404, Cessna 421 and the Piper PA-34 Seneca. How to tell such light aircraft apart is shown in the guide Recognizing light aircraft.

The D-IOLO incident

How demanding island operations can be showed on February 8, 2011. An OLT Islander with the registration D-IOLO had landing gear problems after takeoff from Borkum. The crew declared an emergency and landed in Emden on a prepared foam carpet. The pilot and eight passengers were unharmed. Incidentally, the registration shows the German system: the I in second position stands for multi-engine aircraft up to 5.7 tonnes maximum takeoff weight.

From Bremen: Metro, Saab and Fokker 100

In parallel with the island flights, OLT built up regional operations from the 1990s. In 1991, European charter flights were added. With Bremen-based Roland Air, taken over in 1990, came seven nineteen-seat Fairchild Swearingen Metros, among other aircraft, which flew mainly for OLT – slim turboprops with a strikingly long, narrow fuselage. Saab turboprops followed later, and finally jets.

An important mainstay was plant traffic for Airbus. OLT operated shuttle flights for the manufacturer between its sites and acquired Fokker 100 jets for it. An episode many spotters remember took place between December 2005 and October 2006: on the Bristol–Hamburg route, OLT competed with easyJet twice a day on weekdays – and easyJet withdrew from the route in the end.

The fleet also included a Dornier 328 for a time, which was lost in 2001. A Dornier Do 228 – an island hopper common in northern Germany – cannot be documented for OLT, however; it appears rather with other operators. You can find more on this type on the page for the Dornier Do 228.

Type	Use at OLT	Spotter note
KZ VII	The air taxi’s first aircraft from 1958	Small Danish high-wing aircraft, now a museum piece
Britten-Norman Islander	Island flights from Emden	High-wing aircraft with fixed landing gear, D-I registrations
Cessna 207, 402, 404, 421	Island flights and taxi flights	Single- and twin-engine light aircraft from Cessna
Fairchild Swearingen Metro	Regional scheduled service, seven examples	Long, narrow fuselage, 19 seats
Saab 340	Regional scheduled service, still in the fleet in 2013	Turboprop with a short nose
Saab 2000	Regional scheduled service, still in the fleet in 2013	Stretched, fast variant of the Saab 340
Fokker 100	Airbus shuttle, scheduled service and wet lease, ten aircraft in 2013	Jet with rear-mounted engines and T-tail

The Saab 340 and the Saab 2000 come from Saab, the Fokker 100 from the Dutch manufacturer Fokker. How to tell the various turboprops apart is shown in the guide How to tell turboprops apart.

2011 to 2013: OLT Express and the end

In August 2011, OLT announced a deep cut. The Airbus shuttle contract had gone to Germania, and without it the existing operation no longer paid off. The plans called for ending operations with Fokker and Saab in fall 2011 and cutting 100 of the roughly 120 jobs.

To the very end, OLT Express Germany flew a fairly large network. From Bremen it went to Copenhagen, Toulouse and Zurich, from Dresden to Hamburg, Vienna and Zurich, from Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden to Hamburg and Vienna, from Münster/Osnabrück to Munich and from Saarbrücken to Munich, Hamburg and Vienna. There were also flights on behalf of Swiss from Zurich, which were to run until March 2013.

OLT thus belongs to a whole series of German regional airlines that disappeared in the 2000s and 2010s – much like Augsburg Airways, which also gave up in 2013. The article Regional airlines in Europe provides an overview of regional aviation in Europe.

How to recognize OLT aircraft

Because OLT has been history since 2013, recognizing it today is mainly about old photos, slides and logbook entries. Three features help you attribute them:

1. The titles: OLT carried its name on the fuselage. From late 2011, the new “OLT Express” brand appeared.
2. The registration: All OLT aircraft were registered in Germany and carried a D registration. Small twins like the Islander carry a D-I, large airliners like the Fokker 100 a D-A.
3. Place and time: An Islander in Emden, on Borkum or on Heligoland before 2011 is very likely OLT. Later Islander photos from there rather show OFD.

If you have a blurry picture and cannot read the registration, the guide Identifying an unreadable registration helps. And if you want to know how old an aircraft was when you photographed it, look at Finding out an aircraft’s age.

Spotting island hoppers today

The island flights themselves still exist. At Emden airfield, OFD Ostfriesischer-Flug-Dienst serves all East Frisian islands that have an airfield – Spiekeroog has none and is therefore left out. To Borkum alone there are up to seven connections a day, according to the airfield. OFD also serves Heligoland from Nordholz-Spieka, Heide-Büsum and Uetersen. Islanders are therefore still in service on the coast today.

There is also island traffic from other coastal airfields such as Norden-Norddeich and Harle, where other operators fly. For you, that means: if you want to photograph the small high-wing aircraft, you have several chances on the North Sea coast. The airfields are small, traffic is manageable, and the aircraft often stand close to the fence. You can find general tips for such places under Spotting at small regional airports and Spotting general aviation.

You should always keep an eye on the wind on the coast. It decides from which direction aircraft land and whether anyone flies at all. How to judge crosswind is explained in Crosswind landings. If you want to combine this with larger aircraft, a detour to Bremen Airport is worthwhile – from the observation deck in Bremen you see the place where OLT once had its scheduled operation.

Common mix-ups

• Equating OLT with OFD – OFD took over the island flights in 2011 but is a separate company. Islander photos from 2012 on belong to OFD, not OLT.
• Confusing OLT Express Germany with OLT Express Poland – both carried the same brand but were separate airlines with different registrations.
• Confusing the Islander with the Trislander – the Trislander is the three-engine variant with an engine in the tail and a longer fuselage.
• Thinking every Islander on the North Sea is OLT – other operators also use the type on island routes.
• Confusing the Fokker 100 with the Fokker 70 – the 70 is shorter; OLT used the 100.

Conclusion

OLT was more than a regional airline: for over half a century, it was the link between East Frisia and its islands. An air taxi with a single KZ VII became an operation with the Islander, Metro, Saab and Fokker 100 – and in the end a victim of lost contracts and an opaque investor. The island flights survived, the OLT brand did not. If you own old photos with OLT registrations, you hold a piece of northern German aviation history in your hands.