Airlines you miss....

The airline industry is littered with failures, mergers and consolidation. Some bad airlines have gone away, some good airlines too - or some have got better.

What are your memories?

I'll start with mine, from my early days working in a travel agency in Belfast!

Capital Airlines
Great little airline - flew from Belfast City Airport to seemingly everywhere - even Dublin! Sadly their parent company had difficulties and dragged the little airline down.

Jersey European
Before all this FlyBE nonsense, another decent airline that connected Belfast to the regions!

Air UK
Nicknames AirYuk, just for fun, they always seemed a very serious company to deal with. They flew from Belfast International, and I recall they competed with Jersey European, the Belfast City incumbent, and always seemed to lose!

Gill Air
Another great little airline - the plug was pulled on them, after 9/11

Britannia Airways
The UK's first low cost airline!
BY started a service, utilising a spare aircraft from Belfast International to London Luton Airport. Fares were £29, £39, £49, £59 etc. Back in the day there were no baggage charges, extra taxes or credit card fees!

MaxJet Airways 2003-2007

For a couple of years, I abandoned Virgin and flew MaxJet all business class from Stansted to JFK and LAS. I live 25 minutes from STN airport and this was a fantastic service. I could leave home at 8am and comfortably leave STN on the 10:00am flight. I now have the schlep to LHR on a regular basis.

MaxJet bought up old wide bodied 767s and old blue leather first class seats. They fitted them out with between 92 to 102 seats each in a 2-2-2 config giving 60 inches seat pitch. Compare that with 38 ins in VS PE and you can imagine the space available. Every seat was aisle or window and the feeling of spaciousness was huge. With special checkin desks and a lounge it was a great way to travel to New York.

Sadly missed.

I remember Brittania, that was the airline for my first 'lads' holiday to Ibiza, oh they were the days....

Oh deary me! How can you forget Air Scotia and their fantastically well trained crew where customer service was exceptional in every way !

It was the topic of a BBC reality documentary too ): ): ):

Capital Airlines
Great little airline - flew from Belfast City Airport to seemingly everywhere - even Dublin! Sadly their parent company had difficulties and dragged the little airline down.

Britannia Airways
The UK's first low cost airline!
BY started a service, utilising a spare aircraft from Belfast International to London Luton Airport. Fares were £29, £39, £49, £59 etc. Back in the day there were no baggage charges, extra taxes or credit card fees!

Yep flew with Capital City Airlines from Luton to Belfast Harbour Airport when all it had for a terminal was a temporary building on a Shorts 360.

As for Britannia I remember travelling when their new 'Royal Service' came in - it made it feel really posh!

Air UK - there's a blast from the past...flew with them a few times, most notably from New Castle to Jersey via Stansted on a Fokker F27 on a very windy day!!!

Dan Air - ended up flying with "dan Dare" quite a number of times in my late youth, early adulthood! Used to really enjoy it, many of my early flying memories are with them. Only time I flew on the "pocket rocket" - the BAC111...

Laker - well, what can I say. A very special trip at age 15 or so to LAX on a DC10 (if I knew then....). Of course, a great mentor to SRB and I wonder if things were different........how things might have turned out...

Pan Am - only flew once back from New York in 1984, but recall the buzz I got as an eighteen-year-old flying with such a prestigious airline...and, about the last time I had a real cigarette on an airplane!

Cross Air (think they've gone/been taken over) - had very fond memories of flying LHR-Basel with them very many times. Used to spend weekends with a friend of mine and must have done the round trip at least 12 times. BAE146/RJ100 etc, leather seats and as much "champagne" as you could drink - made me feel as if I'd really "made it"....fun days.

Lastly, not really an airline as such, but flying with British Aerospace!!! Used to work at Hatfield, and did many trips to Woodford (near Manchester) on BAE internal flights.

They used to use the staff cantine as the departure lounge! Sometimes a jetstream, sometimes a BAE748, very occasionally a BAE125 (the little business jet). Really good fun (as I love flying), sometimes scary (jetstream twin turboprop on a day with gusts up to 40 MPH - very bumpy!!).

Remember fondly a return flight to New York with all business class airline Silver Jet who were based at Luton Airport. They had a very good lounge at Airport & standard of food etc was very good. Not sure how long ago I took my flight but guess probably 6 years ago, I do remember the return fare being £999 which represented fantastic value, even at that price the plane was no where near full.

oldboy

[Darren Wheeler]

And of course.

British Caledonia, with one of the greatest adverts ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8q9zOUMdtg

And of course.

British Caledonia, with one of the greatest adverts ever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8q9zOUMdtg

That is one fantastic advert! And the South Terminal still looks exactly the same!

Wardair :

First transatlantic flight myself from Prestwick to Vancouver on a 747.

China / proper cutlery in economy with great service.

Will never forget looking out the window at this funny looking small plane parked next to us while we were on the stand waiting to leave and suddenly realising it was Concorde.

David

Laker Airways...2nd time around!

Cheap as chips flight to MCO (or was it SAN?)from MAN, £89 including 2 weeks car rental...plus Insurance.
Proper cutlery and crockery.

Laker- first ever long haul flight (second time on a plane) LGW-JFK.£199 eac
flight out -overbooked ,got bumped off,next flight delayed so we got 50% back compo
return flight -half way down the runway at JFK,loud bang and a pilot announcing 'ladies and gentlemen we have a small tech problem'..returned to terminal, sat waiting to see if we could get moved to the later flight (now well after midnight) or spend the night in the terminal. last 2 names called .us !!

such happy memories !!

Dan Air is the very first airline I ever remember flying on as a child, probably to Italy.

Also, a few old faves being brought back to memory thanks to this thread, like British Caledonian and Brittania.

Court line, bright coloured aircraft, all pink or orange.

I'm quite surprised that no-one has mentioned that other boutique business only airline EOS, so I will! Several years ago, my then employer allowed us to fly business class to the US, but only with the cheaper carriers, which generally meant United or AA. So when EOS suddenly turned up as being 'in policy' (as the bean counters put it), I thought it was worth a go. Fantastic amount of space, 47 seats in a converted 757 gives you some idea, and it was definitely the biggest overall flat bed I've come across. The personal DVD and Bose noise cancelling headphones were a nice touch (for the time) even if it had to be plugged in after a couple of hours. Plus there was the use of the rather nice Emirates lounge at JFK, which was always almost empty when we used it. Maybe not quite up to the LHR CH, but let's face it, when you are used to the crappy '2 drinks voucher' US lounges, it's a major upgrade.

The nice simple loyalty program worked for me too - fly with them twice and you got £170 of John Lewis vouchers. Well... when I say it worked for me, I actually mean it worked for my wife. But sometimes you have to take brownie points over loyalty points...

Britannia, that takes me back. Flew from Manchester to Pisa (I think) as a child.

British Caledonia, with one of the greatest adverts ever

Oh dear me, the glamour!

ALex

I don't think this shower operated a single flight. I remember calling them and the staff had no idea about child fares!

Wardair :

First transatlantic flight myself from Prestwick to Vancouver on a 747.

China / proper cutlery in economy with great service.

Will never forget looking out the window at this funny looking small plane parked next to us while we were on the stand waiting to leave and suddenly realising it was Concorde.

David

I too have fond memories of Wardair. They were my first transatlantic carrier. I flew from Gatwick to Toronto via Prestwick way back in 1974 on one of their 747's (CF-DJC). As a 14 year old at the time it was a great expeirience. I can still remember thinking how slow the climb was after only having been to Spain on Britannia 737-200's and Dan Air BAC 1-11's and 727's before.

Some sadly departed UK airlines can be found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:D ... ed_Kingdom

Its Maxjet for me too, flew 3 time Stn to Las and absolutely loved them. almost Upper Class with prices usually at Virgin economy prices. Great service and friendly crew every time!

Dan Air - first time I ever flew (to Zurich, I think, I was about 12).

Laker to Orlando - great flight, great service, a real shame they went out of business.

Maxjet - I'm within 30 mins of Stansted and brilliant not to have the usual hassle of getting to either LGW or LHR. Flew to Vegas and it was totally fine (lounge was good too). Sad that they went out of business too - they went bust about a week after we got home though, which was a 'phew' moment!

B.O.A.C - Back when flying was still that little bit special! and the old VC10 as well

Getting on a bit here - time for my early evening nap.....

JB

[honey lamb]

There was a rather nice airline which operated out of Cork for a short time in 2003 and 2004 called Jetmagic - and it was magic. It offered a business class service for economy prices and flew Embraer 145s. It flew to Edinburgh, Belfast and London City as well as Barcelona, Milan and I think, Alicante. I flew it to Milan and it was lovely. A tray of canapés was on offer as was a bottle of wine, ice cream. Sandwiches were freshly made and had some delicious fillings.

We flew to Milan and just loved it. On the way there all the kids were rounded up and brought into the cockpit - very surprising in the early post 9/11 days. On the way back there was only one other child apart from Aer John and that kid was no more interested in the cockpit than the man in the moon. However aviation-mad Aer John showed such an interest that he was invited to sit in the cockpit for the landing into Cork

Aer John was a very lucky man! Would give Gerry away for a chance to sit in the cockpit for Takeoff or a landing! (Im only kidding Gerry I wouldn't get rid of you for that... but maybe if it would bring a bottle of 10 back to the VS bar)
*evil grin*

Mike

[honey lamb]

Aer John was a very lucky man!

Mike

He was indeed. Pre 9/11 it was de riguer for airlines to round up all the children on the flight and bring them into the cockpit. I was bereft that on Aer John's first flight on a 747 (SAA to JNB) he was considered too young to go into the cockpit! Boo! Hiss! I was only dying to accompany him there.

Since 9/11 he has managed to blag his way into the cockpit on several flights with various airlines at the end of a flight. His only opportunity to visit a VS cockpit was on landing in DXB in 2008.

To be in the cockpit for a landing was beyond his wildest dreams and he was able to photograph it. They're not very good photos because of the weather conditions but it shows he was there

Aer John was a very lucky man! Would give Gerry away for a chance to sit in the cockpit for Takeoff or a landing! (Im only kidding Gerry I wouldn't get rid of you for that... but maybe if it would bring a bottle of 10 back to the VS bar)
*evil grin*

Mike

v( v( v( v(

(Tonty and Beary are incandescent you would even think of giving Gerry away!)