#dornier

German bomber Dornier Do. 217E-2 at the airfield before a night flight. April 30, 1942

Aircraft mechanics roll out a Do 217E-4 bomber from the 8th Squadron of the Luftwaffe Bomber Wing KG2 (8./KG2) at an airfield (presumably in France or the Netherlands). July 1942

airsLLide No. 19247: OE-LKA, Dornier 328-110, KLM Alps, Salzburg, August 26, 2000

Much like the Sabena/Schreiner DHC-8 in the previous post, this Dornier commuter prop is also somewhat deceiving in its origin. Although flying proudly the blue and silver livery of a regional subsidiary of the Dutch flag carrier KLM, KLM Alps is - not surprinsingly, given the lack of Alpine peaks in the sea-level Netherlands - an Austrian airline. Formed in 1999 with the intention to link regional airports in Austria with KLM's global hub in Amsterdam, KLM Alps traded as a KLM subsidiary for only two years.

In 2001, it rebranded as Air Alps and became an independent commuter carrier based in Innsbruck, focussing on commuter flights from smaller Austrian airports as well as airports Northern Italy, namely in the South Tyrol region, to various major European gateways either side of the Alps. The venture kept burning money, but backing by regional governments and private investors kept it in the air through a 2009 creditor protection and restructuring phase (similar in intend to a US Chapter 11 bankruptcy) all the way until 2014 when losses became too big to stem.

airsLLide No. 32800: D-CICE, Dornier Do228-101, Alfred Wegener Institute, Friedrichshafen, September 5, 2015