the remaining 50% publicly held and traded on the stock market. Braathens Braathens was founded on March 26, 1946. For many years, Braathens was known as Braathens S.A.F.E, the latter part being an acronym standing for South American and Far East, for the destinations Braathens originally served. The company was founded by Norwegian ship owner Ludvig G. Braathen, with the intention of serving his ships in other parts of the world. In 2001 Braathens formed an alliance with KLM and Northwest Airlines. Alitalia was supposed to also join that alliance, but later decided not to. Braathens also dropped the SAFE from their name, and the company was known as Braathens until 2004. In 2001, after tough economic times, Braathens was bought by the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), although they were able to keep operating under their name until SAS Braathens became operative 1 April 2005. SAS Braathens The first months of 2006 were marked by conflict, and ill pilots caused several flights to be cancelled. Negotiations between cabin personnel and management failed on 6 April, leading to a strike grounding most of the flights, though a deal between management and the unions ended the strike on April 8. By 2007 the airline was one of Norway's most prominent companies, but the lack of reliability caused by the number of cancelled and delayed flights has put the airline at the bottom of 140 Norwegian companies ranked by consumer confidence. The April 2006 strike benefitted SAS Braathens' main competitor, Norwegian Air Shuttle. SAS Braathens CEO Petter Jansen was forced to leave office in June 2006 after disputes with the SAS management in Stockholm, causing much controversy and debate in Norway, since Jansen was leading the only national branch of Scandinavian Airlines that made a profit. However, in 2007 the airline was rebranded as Scandinavian Airlines itself. Flight codes All SAS Braathens flights were operated with the IATA code BU, but all of the SAS Braathens flights were sold and screened at airports as SK flights. Destinations As of June 1, 2007, SAS Braathens served 46 destinations, 17 domestic and 29 European destinations. Fleet The SAS Braathens fleet included the following aircraft as of June 2012: Cabin SAS Braathens operated three classes on the European business destinations and two classes on leisure destinations. In April 2007 SAS Braathens upgraded its Economy Extra and Business class. In Economy class they introduced the new buy