Another airline shuts down after losing license, flights canceled

In aviation, the Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) is the primary certification that allows a civil airline to start running and selling flights to passengers.

In the U.S., it is given out by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) while equivalent government agencies granting AOCs include the Civil Aviation Authority in the United Kingdom, Transport Canada, the Direction générale de l’aviation civile in France and Luftfartsverket, or the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration, in Sweden.

Receiving the AOC requires the airline to prove that it has the necessary planes, staff, safety systems and financial resources to both run flights and stay a functional airline into the coming years.

Swedish charter airline H-Bird loses AOC license

As aviation is a particularly costly industry, lack of funds has caused multiple airlines to shut down and eventually lose their AOC license in the last year.

Last November, Lithuanian aviation company Aviation Solutions Group ended up shutting down all operations of the SmartLynx airline when authorities in Estonia revoked its license in the country. The AOCs for branches in Latvia and Malta were subsequently sold off to Dutch hedge-fund company Stitching Break Point in the hopes that an airline may be able to relaunch after finding an investor.

Related: Airline shuts down after losing license, last flights canceled

Over in the U.S., charter seaplane airline Tailwind Air lost its license in January 2025 after branding itself as a luxury transportation company but then struggling to bring in the necessary traffic on its routes between Northeastern cities like New York and Boston.

As first reported by ch-aviation, the latest airline to lose its AOC license is Swedish charter airline H-Bird. A spokesperson for the Swedish Transport Agency (Transportstyrelsen) confirmed that the airline launched in 1991 to run charter flights to remote parts of Swedish from Stockholm and several other European cities lost its operating license on Dec. 5, 2025 over financing issues.

While very few details around whether it has filed for bankruptcy are publicly available, the situation looks very similar to that of Tailwind Air in that the airline marketed to a high-end traveler who takes charter flights but was unable to bring in the customers necessary to stay profitable.

The latest on the H-Bird Aviation Services, will flights relaunch

The airline has not run any flights since the start of the year; it is unclear whether any travelers were affected by cancelations.

These airlines filed for bankruptcy in 2025:

• Spirit Airlines (Spirit Aviation Holdings, Inc.): Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time on August 29,2025.
• Ravn Alaska: Ceased operations in August 2025 after earlier Chapter 11 proceedings; shut down flights and folded into other operations such as New Pacific.
• Corporate Air: Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (restructuring) in September 2025 as part of a planned sale, according to Bondoro.
• Play Airlines: The Reykjavik-based airline shut down operations and entered involuntary bankruptcy in September 2025.
• Braathens Airlines:The airline was forced to file for bankruptcy and canceled all of its flights in September 2025.

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"Our planes take up to eight passengers and offer personal service and first-class food on board," H-Bird currently writes on its website in the original Swedish. "With easily accessible bases in Bromma, Norrköping and Oslo, we fly all over the Nordic region and Europe. We provide door-to-door transport and our experienced pilots fly you where you want."

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