British Charter

RE: British Charter

Interesting that you point out B-Cal One-elevens. When BA took B-Cal over, they took on quite a few of their -500 series machines and based them at Birmingham, my local airport. These aircraft have since long gone, replaced by the B737-200, and now the 737’s have been replaced by the A319!

The One-eleven was a nice aircraft, but those Rolls-Royce Spey engines really made one hell of a noise on take off. It is nice to see a few of them still flying though, especially considering that most examples are approaching 30 years of age!!

RE: British Charter

And now the big guys, coming together into Oneworld. Alliances
are one of the harmfulest thing for passangers at least for the ones paying low fares. Fine to get high yield ones, but terrible for the rest. In the case of Caledonian I think JMC has done a wrong thing by dropping Caledonian Rampant Lion which was something really popular in the UK, I remember flying to the UK (for the first time) with a Bcal Bac 1-11 (my favourite plane) I was amussed by this airline. Things as you say are getting worse and worse and we are to build a huge, mega, big global airline.
I am sure, one day airlines will be allowed to join and one day even with the americans ones. Thats bad.

RE: British Charter

The situation in Spain sounds quite bad. It is interesting that you should mention Iberia swallowing everything up. In the UK, British Airways has been doing similar things. Trace this back to 1988 when they took British Caledonian to 1992 when Dan Air fell victim to them. In the past six years, several independant UK carriers have lost their identity thanks to BA, becoming franchise carriers. Airlines such as Brymon still exist to an extent, but all of their aircraft carry full BA colours and have BA flight codes, as well as cabin crew. Not to mention the fact that all their flights are promoted as BA flights.

Some in the industry believe that BA was partly responsible for the collapse of Air Europe, and do you remember Laker? Pushed out of the market by the ‘big boys’.

Regards,
V1

RE: British Charter

The situation of the aviation is Spain is rather dramatic and stagnant, with Iberia swallowing everything. In the 1992 after the liberalization of European skies there were a lot of starts ups, but due that all collapsed, there´s an excesive prudence when creating new airlines. You mention VIVA, closed down by Iberia Pilot´s because they refused to hand them destinations. It was a great thing having a low cost, but Iberia as a previous statal airline, never had a racional idea. Now they want to purchase GO (what for?). And you mention Palma as home base of many charter airlines. As you know Spaniards don´t travel as much as other nationalities and this doesn´t allow the spanish charter to be dependant on the national market (which essential concentrate on flights to the Caribbean, Balearics and Canary Islands, and right now to Zamzibar) so the airlines which survive are the ones which are able to flight international passangers and have links with foreign tour operators. The British market is to protective to allow Spanish charters to carry British and only Futura (as part of AerLingus,
LTE as part of LTU and Spanair closely linked to the scandinavian market) the rest have dissapeared. And on the other way as you ask, Palma is a small place where everybody know everybody. One start up is made by people coming from another airline. Cenntenial (incorrect management desitions), was then BCM, them ERA and previously Universair. I hope I had answer your question.

RE: British Charter

i often wondered what happened to oasis. Its a shame the spanish it airline market has changed so much in the last few years with every one egar for the scheduled routes. What happened to Centenial?? Viva folded after ib decided to drop charter traffic, and is Futura still growing, although im not sure on the new colour scheme!!! I can just about remener Spantax!! is their stillone of the aircraft at pmi in storage? a company i ued to work for used to use them for carrying passengers to MAH, along with Hispania!!!! Spanair have improved alot over the last few years. Working at MAN in Passenger Handling it seems that the 6+ hour delays are not hat common and Spanair did have a habit of sending other carriers when they had no aicraft. Many a time weve had Constellation B727`s instead of JKK which makes a nice change and gives us the chance to see carriers that are rare visitors usually.

RE: British Charter

It sounds like quite a dramatic saga with what happened to Oasis, I often wondered what happened to them. As for Spanair and their cramped aircraft, the worst I ever flew on was Britannia onboard a 757-204. If I remember rightly, the config was a maximum density layout of 228 passengers. I have read that the 757 can seat up to around 239, but I shudder to think what sitting in those conditions would be like. I myself am quite tall at 6ft 3inches, so I really suffer when flying charter.

However, I have flown on a Continental B757 from Birmingham to Newark and that had a lot more room onboard, as you would expect from a scheduled carrier. I think the example I flew on had a layout for 159 passengers, far less than a charter configuration!!

Regards,
V1

RE: British Charter

Well, I am pleasantly suprised you know such a lot about charter in Spain. As far as Spanair is concerned, you are quite right they have really “monkey class” configurations with planes crampted with seats. Some MD-83 have 170 vs IB MD-88 with 150.
MD-87 with 137 vs IB´s with 109 and A321 with Chinese class 218 pax with no bulkheads, galleys of toilets in the middle. The reason is that they have to share two philosofies: charter (high configuration) and schedule (higher pitchs). They have commited a huge mistake, for regional they have created a subsidiary called Spanair Link but instead of using small regional they are using B717 with 112 seats and most of their regional flights are having big losses, so right now they are giving schedule flights to Spanair Links to reduce costs. And Spanair bellongs to SAS in a 49% per cent. The rest, private Spanish investors.
Oasis was “killed” by Delta at JFK. The American airline had rented a A310 to Oasis. They operated to NY and Delta started flying from MAD as well using the same aircraft, so as Oasis had a debt with Delta, one day Delta empoyees (having sued them) removed one piece of the Oasis plane for it wasn´t able to take off and getting Osais passangers to their flight. Then it collapsed. Most of the employees are now in Iberworld.

RE: British Charter

It will be a shame if Air Europa does go, but I’m not surprised by this. I’ve noticed that some of their aircraft are in full Iberia colours when they have arrived at Birmingham. As for Spanair, I reckon they will improve as time goes by. They have just taken delivery of their first A321 and will eventually replace those rather cramped MD-83’s they currently use. Am I right in saying that Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) has a stake in them?

Regards,

V1

P.S. – Talking of Spanish holiday carriers, who can remember Oasis?

RE: British Charter

Well, as far as financial performance is quite difficult to know. I agree that Air Europe was quite surprising, the same thing is going on here in Spain where we are hearing all the time thar Air Europa will be over soon. Now there are mor than speculations with the possible merger with IB, which as far as competence is concerned should be terrible for passangers, since Spanair is not doing it quite well and I think it will be with Lufhansa and Star soon. Let´s concentrate on B Charters. It seems that all are offering the same thing in terms of service.
Any stands out?. And in terms of bad service?. I have heard many times that Airtours service is particularly bad. Any possible merger?.

RE: British Charter

British charter airlines, eh? I have flown with most of them from my local airport, which is Birmingham International.

I have seen that many charter carriers come and go over the past twenty years, it is sometimes difficult to see who is still in business and who is not!!

Do you remember Air Europe? This was a Gatwick based charter carrier who I flew several times with in the eighties and they were really quite a good charter carrier. They won several awards within the industry and had a good all round reputation. AE itself was doing very well by around 1989/90 and had many aircraft on order including Fokker 100s, Boeing 737s and Boeing 757s. AE was the launch customer for the RR Trent powered MD-11, which it was to use on it’s long haul routes. I read somewhere that by around 1995, AE would have had around 90 aircraft in its fleet. Most people thought the airline would be a potential world beater, as it was also starting up several succesful scheduled services from its Gatwick base.
Imagine my dismay when the airline ceased operations in March 1991. I was totally surprised by this, I thought it was a joke when someone first told me about it. AE was doing very well up until the day it ceased to be, but its parent company, the International Leisure Group was not, it would seem. ILG owned the tour operator Intasun, which also folded. Interestingly enough, AE was the only customer for the Trent powered MD-11, and the latter never materised.

My point here is that no matter how well a charter airline is doing, it is the actions and what happens to their owners which will ultimately decide their future. Take overs and mergers are very common within the charter industry too. Who remembers tour operator Horizon and their airline, Orion? Thomson took Horizon over and Orion was integrated into britannia airways. Flying Colours and Caledonian megered to form JMC as a result of their parents changing their business strategy. Losing the Flying Colours name was a big mistake.

How long before we see such famous names as Britannia and Monarch disappear I wonder. It was not long ago when Airtours and First Choice (who own Air 2000) were in the press regarding a possible merger, though this never did happen.

One final point, the service offered by charter airlines is quite good nowadays, but those darn seats in charter config are still way too cramped!!!

regards,
V1

RE: British Charter

well I totally agree with regarding this issue and think that what you are saying their are a lot of thuth behind charter airline it is a huge industary for us and them also i totally agree I have flew with all the major airlines (charter) and out of them all Monarch has been the best for service and I would never again go with Airtours also JMC are okay as well as Air- 2000 but I fell that some airlines should put more into service on these flights even though they are only charter. As for monarch not doing to well they have just got 5 new airbus 321 due for delvery in 2001 starts so I fell that monarch are not doing that bad, also airtours for such a big airline within europe with are totally the worsted for everything and would not recommend them to anyone.