Iceland's Nordurflug, a charter business mainly working in photography and filming, has been up and running for a year and says it is on schedule to achieve JAR OPS certification next month.

The company's founder Diddi Kristofersson, a veteran of the North Sea oil and gas industry, recently added an SA365N Dauphin to the company's existing Bell 206 JetRanger.

The Dauphin had 1,890 hours on the clock when Nordurflug purchased it from Japan, where it was used as a VIP shuttle for an airline.

"We don't have JAR OPS 3, so we are in the process of getting that. As soon as we get it, we have a lot of booking demand on the Dauphin already," Kristofersson told EBAN from a windy Icelandic hillside.

"We use the helicopters mostly for work related to the film industry and advertising. A lot of the major car companies - Porsche, Audi, Mercedes - shoot their upcoming models in Iceland.

"Right now we are shooting for a big American power company. From April to October, that's basically what we do."

Kristofersson left the oil industry after more than 20 years working with helicopters. "When you turn back home, you want to fall back

on something. And the time was right to establish a company like this now - we have a lot of very wealthy Icelanders.

"We have one of the foremost film pilots in the world on our staff," he added. "He is hired around the world, in 10 days he's going to Dubai..."