BRA Braathens Regional Airlines

If you stood at Stockholm Bromma a few years ago, you couldn’t miss BRA: Avro RJs, Embraers and ATRs taxied out every few minutes to destinations all over Sweden. Today Bromma is almost empty – and BRA is still around. The Swedish regional airline has reinvented itself and now flies its ATR 72-600s on behalf of other airlines, mainly for SAS. For spotters that means: the aircraft are still out there, just under someone else’s flight number. This page shows you where BRA comes from, what flies today and how to assign the aircraft cleanly.

BRA at a glance

BRA Braathens Regional Airlines is a Swedish regional airline that was formed in February 2016 as a joint brand of several domestic companies. Behind the abbreviation there were initially three roots: Malmö Aviation, Sverigeflyg and Braathens Regional, the former Golden Air. The aim was a unified presence in the Swedish domestic market instead of several small brands side by side.

Until the end of 2024, Stockholm Bromma was BRA’s home. From there the airline flew to destinations such as Gothenburg, Malmö, Umeå, Kalmar, Ronneby or Visby, plus seasonal connections and individual international destinations like Helsinki and Aarhus. That made BRA one of the most important providers in Swedish domestic traffic.

In September 2024 came the change of course: BRA gave up its own route network and moved into the wet lease business. Since January 2025, the ATR 72-600s have flown mainly for SAS – BRA provides aircraft, crews, maintenance and insurance, and SAS sells the tickets. What is behind this is explained in the article Wet lease explained simply.

From Malmö Aviation to BRA: the backstory

BRA is a young brand with a long backstory. The key milestones:

• Malmö Aviation (from 1981): flew scheduled service out of Bromma for decades – among other aircraft with jets of the BAe 146/Avro RJ family. The IATA code TF comes from it; as its ICAO code it used SCW with the callsign “SCANWING.” More on the page about Malmö Aviation.
• Golden Air (from 1976): a small company from Trollhättan that was taken over by the Braathens group in 2012 and renamed Braathens Regional in 2013. The current flight operations company Braathens Regional Airways evolved from it.
• Sverigeflyg: an association of regional airlines that the Braathens owners took over step by step from 2011.
• 2016: Merger under the joint brand BRA. Malmö Aviation no longer flew under its own name afterward.

Behind it all is the Braathen family. Ludvig G. Braathen founded Braathens SAFE in Norway in 1946, which later merged into SAS. The majority owner of BRA today is Braganza AB of Per G. Braathen; since October 2021, the Swedish pension insurer AMF has held a minority stake. BRA is not a direct continuation of the Norwegian airline, however – the link runs through the family, not through the company.

BRA was not alone in the Swedish domestic market. If you are interested in the predecessors and competitors, you will also find Linjeflyg and NextJet in our database – two more chapters of Swedish regional aviation that are history today.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code TF: appeared in BRA flight numbers until the end of 2024, for example on the last own flight TF427 from Visby to Bromma.
• ICAO code BRX: belongs to the flight operations company Braathens Regional Airways AB.
• Callsign BRAATHENS: this is how the crew identifies itself when flying under its own code.

Since the move to the wet lease, the situation is more complicated. Flights for SAS operate under SK flight numbers – so on the departure board and in the tracker the flight looks like any other SAS flight. How IATA and ICAO codes relate is explained in the guide to IATA and ICAO codes.

The fleet: only the ATR 72-600 now

Today’s fleet is more uniform than ever. According to Braathens’ fleet overview, 15 aircraft of the type ATR 72-600 fly with 72 seats each, two pilots and two flight attendants. The registrations begin with SE-MK… and SE-MN… – that gives you a handy feature for recognizing BRA aircraft even under someone else’s flight number. The manufacturer is the French-Italian turboprop specialist ATR.

Type	Status	Seats	Spotter note
ATR 72-600	current, 15 according to Braathens	72	Only type today; registrations SE-MK…/SE-MN…
ATR 72-500	historic	–	Predecessor version, replaced by the -600
Avro RJ100	historic	–	Four-engine high-wing jet, long the sight at Bromma
Avro RJ85	historic	–	Shorter version of the RJ family
Embraer 190	historic	–	Only in service for a time
Airbus A319 etc.	historic, until 2025	–	In charter through the sister company Braathens International Airways

The fleet has now been switched completely to the ATR 72-600. Gone are the four-engine Avro RJ85 and Avro RJ100, as well as the Embraer 190 and the older ATR 72-500s. If you have older photos from Bromma in your archive, you own genuine historical documents.

The sister company Braathens International Airways played a special role; with its own air operator’s certificate, it used Airbus aircraft such as the A319 in the charter and ACMI business. At the end of September 2025, it filed for insolvency because of liquidity problems. The ATR flights were not affected, according to Braathens – but the group’s Airbus era is over.

Farewell to Bromma: the move to the wet lease

The break came in two steps. First the pandemic hit BRA hard: in April 2020, the airline suspended flight operations and applied for a reorganization procedure. From fall 2020, BRA returned step by step, but Swedish domestic traffic recovered only slowly. In fall 2023 came a second procedure for several companies of the group, whose plan was approved by creditors and the court in early 2024.

In September 2024, BRA drew the consequences and announced it would end its own scheduled service. In the same month, SAS announced a partnership under which BRA takes over flights out of Stockholm Arlanda as a subcontractor from 2025 – designed to run for seven years. On December 30, 2024, BRA flew its last own scheduled flight with TF427 from Visby to Bromma. The ATRs then moved to Arlanda.

For Bromma this was a deep cut, because BRA was the most important scheduled carrier there. For you as a spotter, the action shifts: you will find BRA aircraft today mainly at Stockholm Arlanda and at Copenhagen Airport – besides Sweden, Braathens also names Denmark as a base country.

How to recognize BRA

The most important feature is the aircraft type. BRA flies exclusively the ATR 72-600, a high-wing turboprop with two propeller engines and a T-tail. Compared with regional jets, the ATR is slower, quieter on approach and used on short routes. How to tell it from similar turboprops like the Dash 8 is shown in the guide How to tell the ATR 42/72 and Dash 8 apart.

Be careful with the livery. Because the aircraft have flown for SAS since 2025, they show up in the SAS environment – in photos a BRA ATR can quickly be filed as “SAS.” Whether an aircraft is currently flying in SAS colors or with its own titles is secondary for the assignment: what matters is the registration. How to read registrations is explained in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

Spotting BRA: Arlanda and Copenhagen

Since 2025, the two big hubs in the north are the best places for BRA sightings. At Arlanda the ATRs depart for SAS domestic destinations, and at Copenhagen Kastrup they serve regional routes in the SAS network. There they mix with A320neos, regional jets and long-haul traffic – the small turboprops stand out pleasantly among the jets.

At Arlanda there are official spotting areas; you will find details at the spotters’ hill at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. In Copenhagen the Flyvergrillen is a classic, and more tips are collected in the plane spotting guide for Copenhagen Kastrup.

Sustainability as a core of the brand

BRA positioned itself for years as a pioneer in more sustainable flying. In 2016, according to its own statements, the airline carried out a demonstration flight with significantly reduced emissions, and in 2018, by its own account, it was the first airline to offer its passengers sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) as an add-on option when booking. The choice of the ATR 72-600 fits this, too: turboprops burn less fuel on short routes than jets of similar size. In the wet lease business, Braathens supports the use of SAF today through partnerships with its customers.

Context: BRA among Europe’s regional airlines

BRA is an example of a trend: regional airlines disappear as their own brand but keep flying as service providers for larger network airlines. You know similar models from other regional operations in Europe; the article Regional airlines in Europe gives an overview. During the time of its own network, BRA worked, among others, with Finnair and Widerøe via codeshare – Widerøe is still the big regional and turboprop airline in neighboring Norway.

Common mix-ups

• Treating BRA as the same as Braathens SAFE – the Norwegian airline is historic and merged into SAS; BRA is a separate Swedish company.
• Taking every SAS ATR for an SAS aircraft – often BRA is flying on a wet lease, the registration shows it.
• Looking for TF flights in current schedules – since 2025, BRA practically flies only under other airlines’ flight numbers.
• Seeing Bromma as the BRA hotspot – that was true until the end of 2024, today Arlanda and Copenhagen are the places.
• Logging Malmö Aviation as a current airline – it was absorbed into BRA in 2016 and no longer appears under its own name.
• Mixing up the ATR 72-500 and -600 – BRA now flies only the -600.

Conclusion

BRA is a lesson in how quickly an airline can transform. In 2016, Malmö Aviation, Golden Air and Sverigeflyg became one of the most important Swedish domestic brands, based at Bromma. After the pandemic and a weak domestic market, its own network disappeared at the end of 2024 – the ATR 72-600s keep flying, just for SAS. If you note down the registration and operator, you will recognize BRA even when the departure board says only SAS.