private placement of NOK 7.5 million. By April 2001, the liquidity problems in Coast Air were so severe that the employees threatened to file for bankruptcy. Coast Air chose to terminate the Haugesund–Aberdeen route, and replace it with a service between Bergen and Aberdeen. With the Scandinavian Airlines System take-over of Braathens in May, Coast Air became the largest airline in the country not owned by the SAS Group. In 2003, the company chose to reintroduce the route between Stavanger and Geilo. Following Ryanair's establishment of a route from Haugesunnd to London-Stansted in 2003, Coast Air won the contract for ground services in competition with SAS Ground Services. With the freeing up of aircraft after the 2003 PSO contract losses, Coast Air introduced and additional daily flight to Aberdeen. However, this was countered by Widerøe, who also started flying the route with Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 aircraft. Coast Air also introduced three daily flights from Stord to Oslo. On 5 May, the company started flights between Kristiansund Airport, Kvernberget and Trondheim Airport, Værnes, after having received a NOK 150,000 subsidy from the Municipality of Kristiansund for marketing the route. The competition to Aberdeen proved to be too fierce, and Coast Air terminated operations in December. In September, the company ended in court with the labor union, regarding whether the company had promised them a fifth week of holiday in earlier negotiations; the company lost the court case. On 2 June 2003, Coast Air started its first head-on competition with Scandinavian Airlines. Using the ATR planes, Coast Air started with two daily round services between Haugesund and Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. By September, Coast Air increased to three daily round trips, and reduced prices to NOK 500. From 9 October, Scandinavian Airlines reduced their prices by 22% on the route. On 16 February, Coast Air also started competing with Braathens and Widerøe on the route between Stavanger and Bergen, marketing it as a low-fare service and ticket prices as low as NOK 199. The Haugesund–Oslo route cost Coast Air NOK 11 million in 2003. In March 2004, Coast Air was forced to close the Stord to Oslo route, after several reductions in frequency during the past year. To create more inertia on the Bergen–Stavanger route, Coast Air also started a cooperation with DAT, where the latter flew an extra daily round trip. Following the losses of the Haugesund–Oslo and Bergen–Stavanger routes, they were