Darwin Airline

Darwin Airline is one of those airlines that many spotters have photographed without realizing it. Sometimes “Darwin” was on the fuselage, sometimes “Etihad Regional”, at the very end “Adria Airways Switzerland” – behind it was always the same small company from Ticino. This page sorts out the history of the Lugano airline, explains its fleet of Saab 2000s and ATR 72-500s and shows you how to attribute old photos cleanly.

Darwin Airline at a glance

Darwin Airline was a Swiss regional airline based near Lugano. It was founded on August 12, 2003 – at a time when Ticino was at risk of losing its air links: Swiss had dropped Lugano from its own network. Darwin stepped into the gap. The airline started its first scheduled flight on July 28, 2004 from Lugano to Geneva, shortly after the Federal Office of Civil Aviation (BAZL) had granted the operating license.

Several founders stood behind the airline, including pilots, and in the cockpit as well as the cabin there were initially many people from the former Crossair. That fits: the Basel regional airline had shaped Lugano for many years and was launch customer for exactly the aircraft type with which Darwin began operations – the Saab 2000.

Darwin always remained a small airline. Around 300 employees and a fleet in the low double digits were the maximum. What makes the story exciting is the many changes: takeover of Baboo, Etihad coming in, a restart as Adria Airways Switzerland – and in the end bankruptcy in December 2017.

Codes and callsigns

• IATA code F7: appeared in the flight number. What distinguishes the two code systems is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes. Darwin took it over in March 2011 along with the business of the Geneva regional airline Baboo. Before that, Darwin flew with a different IATA code of its own.
• ICAO code DWT: appeared in the air traffic control flight plan and therefore on the flight trackers.
• Callsign DARWIN: this is how the crews called in on the radio – also in the time as Etihad Regional.

Important for your archive: the brand changed, the codes did not. An Etihad Regional flight was still “DARWIN” on the radio and DWT in the flight plan. If you evaluate old tracker data or radio recordings, you therefore find the airline under the same code across all brand phases. How to research an aircraft’s past flights is shown in the guide on an aircraft’s flight history.

History: from Lugano to bankruptcy

2003 to 2010: Ticino restart with the Saab 2000

Darwin began with a clear task: to connect Lugano with the big Swiss airports and abroad again. The first route was Lugano–Geneva, and further destinations were added step by step. The home base was on the grounds of Lugano Airport in Agno; in 2009 Darwin also took over the maintenance department at the airport.

The aircraft flown was the Saab 2000. The 50-seat turboprop was well suited to the short runway and the demanding approach in the Ticino valley and fast enough to also fly longer routes in Europe economically. Only 63 examples were built by manufacturer Saab, a large share of them going to Crossair.

2011: Baboo, a new code and the Dash 8 Q400

At the end of 2010 the Geneva regional airline Baboo was in trouble. In November 2010 Darwin announced that it would take over routes and parts of the business; the takeover was completed in March 2011. That made Geneva the second base, and Darwin flew from then on under the IATA code F7.

With Baboo, two Dash 8 Q400s with 74 seats each also joined the fleet. They remained a short chapter: for Darwin’s network the larger turboprops had too much capacity and were sold again.

2013 to 2017: Etihad Regional

The big upheaval came at the end of 2013. In November Etihad Airways announced that it would take around one third of the shares (33.3 percent); the BAZL, however, did not approve the stake until April 2015. The Gulf airline was then taking stakes in several European airlines – including Air Berlin, Alitalia and Air Serbia, and outside Europe for example Air Seychelles. Darwin was to serve as a feeder for Etihad flights from Europe. You can read more about the Gulf carriers’ model in the article on Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad.

From January 2014 Darwin appeared as Etihad Regional. The first aircraft in the new design flew on January 17, 2014. In addition came four ATR 72-500s, which Darwin leased from Nordic Aviation Capital. Through codeshares, Etihad Regional was supposed to feed its partner’s long-haul routes to Abu Dhabi – but the necessary approvals took a long time to arrive.

The network grew fast – and shrank just as fast. At times the airline served routes from Leipzig/Halle and Dresden, plus connections to France, Austria and Italy. In Italy Darwin lost several domestic routes to Rome in 2014, for example from Ancona and Trapani, because an exemption from the cabotage rules for Swiss airlines was not extended; Aosta–Rome never even got started. The Lugano–Zurich route, which Darwin flew for Swiss, ended in October 2014. On February 18, 2015, Darwin then discontinued around two thirds of its routes without prior notice; by March 2015 all connections in Germany and the Leipzig/Halle base were gone as well.

Flying for others: wet lease as a second pillar

After withdrawing from the large network, Darwin focused more on operating flights on behalf of other airlines – classic wet lease. From 2015 the four ATR 72-500s flew domestic routes for Alitalia, and some Saab 2000s were flying for Air Berlin from April 2015 – that contract ended in spring 2016. Darwin also flew for Bern-based SkyWork Airlines at times; SkyWork ended the cooperation at the end of 2015.

For spotters, precisely this phase makes attribution tricky: an aircraft in Etihad Regional livery could fly under an Alitalia or Air Berlin flight number. The registration is what matters then, not the flight number.

2017: Adria Airways Switzerland and the end

In July 2017 Etihad and the other shareholders sold their shares to the Luxembourg holding company 4K Invest, which also owned the Slovenian Adria Airways. Darwin remained a company of its own, but from late summer 2017 appeared as Adria Airways Switzerland. The Etihad brand disappeared.

It did not last long. The Air Berlin contract had already expired in 2016, and in 2017 Alitalia, the most important remaining wet-lease partner, also went insolvent. At the end of November 2017 Darwin announced that it would close the Lugano base and applied for creditor protection. On November 28, 2017, the BAZL revoked the operating license for scheduled flights, and on December 12, 2017 the company was declared insolvent and dissolved. The leased ATR 72-500s were due to leave the fleet in early 2018 anyway. You can find more on such collapses in the overview of major airline failures in Europe.

Year	Event	Spotter relevance
2003	Founded in Lugano	–
2004	First scheduled flight Lugano–Geneva	Saab 2000 in the Darwin design
2011	Takeover of Baboo, code F7	Geneva as second base, briefly Dash 8 Q400
2014	Etihad Regional brand	New design, ATR 72-500s join
2015	Sharp network cuts, wet lease for Alitalia and Air Berlin	Foreign flight numbers on Darwin aircraft
2017	Adria Airways Switzerland, license revoked, bankruptcy	Last design, end of flight operations

The fleet

For long stretches Darwin was a pure Saab 2000 airline. Only with Etihad did a second type join permanently.

Type	Period	Seats	Role	Spotter tip
Saab 2000	2004–2017, finally 6	50	Backbone of the fleet	Long, slim fuselage, low wing, six-blade propellers
ATR 72-500	from 2014, 4 leased	68	Expansion from Geneva, later flights for Alitalia	High wing, leased from Nordic Aviation Capital
Dash 8 Q400	from 2011, 2	74	Legacy of Baboo	In service only briefly, sold again

The Saab 2000 is the type that defines Darwin. With its engines set far forward on the wing and its long fuselage, it looks larger and more stretched than the smaller Saab 340. It was one of the fastest turboprops of its time – which is why Crossair called it the “Concordino”. Because only a few examples were built, every sighting today is something special.

The ATR 72-500 from the manufacturer ATR, by contrast, is a mass-market type: high-wing, landing gear in fairings on the fuselage, easily recognized by the high wing above the cabin. For Darwin it was the step toward more capacity on the new Etihad Regional routes.

If you are generally unsure about turboprops, the comparison in Telling the ATR 42/72 and Dash 8 apart helps.

How to recognize Darwin aircraft

At Darwin the date of the photo decides which design you are looking for. Three phases can be distinguished:

The registrations begin, as on all Swiss aircraft, with HB-. How the Swiss registration is structured and which blocks exist is explained in the article on Swiss HB registrations. Because Darwin aircraft changed their brand several times, it is also worth looking at hybrid and mixed liveries and at the topic of livery changes and rebranding: especially in transition periods, aircraft flew with a half-new, half-old look.

Where you saw Darwin – and where today

The classic Darwin places were Lugano and Geneva. Lugano, with its short airfield between the mountains, was home, and Geneva from 2011 the second base and in the Etihad era the center of the network. If you photographed in Geneva, you will often find the Saab 2000 and ATR in old pictures from the observation deck at Geneva Airport; tips for the place today are in the Geneva plane spotting guide. For Leipzig/Halle, where Darwin had a base from 2013 to 2015, the Leipzig/Halle spotting guide helps.

Zurich was added – for example on the route to Lugano, which Darwin flew for Swiss until October 2014 – and in the Etihad phase airports in Germany, Austria, France and Italy. In Zurich, the Butzenbüel was already a good choice for turboprops back then; more in the Zurich plane spotting guide.

Today you no longer see Darwin in scheduled service. For your logbook the airline is an archive topic. The chance lies in old photos: if you were out in Lugano, Geneva or Zurich between 2004 and 2017, you may well have several Darwin phases in the can.

Darwin in the context of Swiss regional aviation

Darwin belongs to a line of Swiss regional airlines that came and went. Model and predecessor in Ticino was Crossair, which was absorbed into Swiss in 2002. In parallel to Darwin, SkyWork Airlines flew in Bern and also gave up in 2018. From this generation it is mainly Helvetic Airways that has survived, today flying heavily for Swiss. If you want to understand the big airlines, it is best to also read the page on Swissair and the overview of regional airlines in Europe.

The Etihad episode also shows how closely small airlines can be tied to large investors: when Etihad wound down its European equity network and partners such as Air Berlin and Alitalia failed, Darwin lost its foundation.

Common mix-ups

• Taking Etihad Regional for an Etihad subsidiary with its own license – the operator was always Darwin Airline SA with the ICAO code DWT.
• Assigning F7 before 2011 to Darwin – the code belonged to Baboo until then.
• Attributing every Saab 2000 in Lugano to Darwin – before 2004 Crossair flew there, and afterward Swiss, with the same type.
• Confusing the Saab 2000 and ATR 72 – low wing versus high wing, the wing feature is unambiguous.
• Equating the flight number with the operator – in the wet-lease phase, Darwin aircraft flew under Alitalia or Air Berlin numbers.
• Taking Adria Airways Switzerland for Adria Airways – the Swiss company remained legally Darwin.

Conclusion

Darwin Airline was small but eventful: founded to connect Ticino, grown through Baboo, inflated as Etihad Regional and in the end a victim of its partners’ crises. For spotters it remains remembered above all as a Saab 2000 airline – and as a lesson that titles change, but registrations and the ICAO code stay.