Air Ceylon
| Air Ceylon | |
|---|---|
|
|
| IATA code : | AE |
| ICAO code : | AE |
| Call sign : | AIR CEYLON |
| Founding: | 1947 |
| Operation stopped: | 1979 |
| Seat: |
Colombo , Sri Lanka
|
| Home airport : |
|
| Fleet size: | 2 |
| Aims: | National and international |
| Air Ceylon ceased operations in 1979. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Air Ceylon was an internationally operating Sri Lankan scheduled airline based in Colombo . The state-owned company , which was founded in 1947, stopped long-haul traffic to Europe on March 31, 1978 for economic reasons and also ended its regional flight operations on August 31, 1979.
history
1940s
Air Ceylon was founded in Colombo in the summer of 1947 by the government of the British Dominion Ceylon and was initially based at Ratmalana Airport, south of the capital . Operations started in the same year with two Douglas C-47s (DC-3), which were used on four weekly scheduled flights from Colombo via Jaffna and Trichinopoly to Madras ( India ). Air Ceylon received route rights between Colombo and Karachi ( Pakistan ) in the spring of 1948. In early 1949, the company entered into a ten-year cooperation with Australian National Airways , which then acquired 49 percent of the company shares and provided logistical and technical support in setting up the further route network. From the summer of 1949 Air Ceylon leased two Douglas C-54 (DC-4) from the Australian partner company, with which they opened a weekly connection between Colombo and London . The flights, which lasted more than 39 hours, were made with stopovers in Bombay , Karachi, Cairo and Rome and were carried out by Australian crews.
1950s
In cooperation with Australian National Airways , the company was able to extend its London route from January 20, 1950 via Singapore and Darwin to Sydney . The liner services between Ceylon and Great Britain were in competition with Trans World Airlines ( TWA ) and British Overseas Airways Corporation ( BOAC ), making them unprofitable. After BOAC put brand new De Havilland DH.106 Comet jet aircraft into service between London and Colombo on August 11, 1952 and Air Ceylon posted a loss of £ 77,000 in the first six months of fiscal 1953 , all long-haul connections were abandoned in September 1953 . At the same time, the company ended its cooperation with Australian National Airways and returned both Douglas C-54s to them. Afterwards, Air Ceylon only served the route to Madras internationally with its two remaining Douglas DC-3s. The route network had thus shrunk back to the original state of 1947.
In 1955, the Dutch KLM acquired the 49 percent stake held by Australian National Airways in the company. With a Lockheed L-749A Constellation rented from KLM , Air Ceylon resumed weekly scheduled flights to Europe on February 21, 1956, with stops in Bombay, Bahrain and London as far as Amsterdam . The machine was replaced in November 1958 by a leased Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation , with which there were also scheduled services to Singapore again. At the end of the 1950s, Air Ceylon sought route rights to Djakarta ( Indonesia ), Hong Kong (then a British colony) and Canton ( People's Republic of China ), but did not receive any permits from the authorities there because the scheduled flights were to be operated by Dutch crews. Another reason for the rejection was the large KLM participation in the company. Under pressure from the national pilots union, the Ceylon government acquired a further 25 percent of the company's shares in March 1959, increasing the state's stake to 76 percent.
1960s
As a replacement for the Lockheed L-1049G, Air Ceylon started using a Lockheed L-188 Electra leased from KLM on their long-haul routes from November 1960 . To stay competitive, the company planned to introduce jet aircraft on the European route in 1961 . The Douglas DC-8s offered by KLM were not used because the machines on the 1,800-meter-long runway at Ratmalana Airport could only be operated with a reduced payload and therefore not economically. On November 1, 1961, the leased Lockheed L-188 was returned to KLM and all long-haul services were temporarily suspended. At the same time, the company ended its cooperation with the Dutch company. KLM then sold its remaining shares to the Ceylon government, making Air Ceylon a purely state-owned company.
In April 1962, the company resumed scheduled flights via Karachi and Rome to London and via Kuala Lumpur to Singapore with a De Havilland Comet 4 rented by BOAC . For flights to Madras acquired Air Ceylon in 1964 a factory new turboprop machine of the type Hawker Siddeley HS 748 , with which also was served from early 1965 Bombay. The remaining Douglas DC-3s were then only used in national scheduled services and on charter flights . As a replacement for the Comet 4, the company rented a Vickers VC10 from BOAC for six months for the first time in November 1965 , which, like the jet aircraft previously used in wet lease , only bore the Air Ceylon logo . A Nord 262 was added to the fleet in March 1967. In the same year, the company moved its operational base from Ratmalana Airport to the newly opened Katunayake International Airport . At this time, the company ended its own flights to Europe and entered into a collaboration with BOAC on the London route , using free capacities on board their machines. In mid-July 1969 Air Ceylon took over its first own jet aircraft, a Hawker Siddeley Trident , which was operated on the routes to Bangkok , Bombay, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Madras and Singapore and replaced the Nord 262.
1970s
In 1971 the company management decided not to extend the cooperation with BOAC and instead to carry out scheduled services to Europe and Australia with their own aircraft. For this purpose, Air Ceylon acquired a Douglas DC-8-53 from the French Union de Transports Aériens ( UTA ) in autumn 1971 on a hire purchase basis and agreed a three-year cooperation with this airline. UTA provided technical support from April 1, 1972 and made the crews available for resuming long-haul operations. From April 6, the route to London was flown twice a week with stopovers in Karachi, Rome and Paris , and the flights to Sydney from April 12, 1972 once a week with a stopover in Singapore. The machine was also used on a new weekly connection from Colombo via Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to Djakarta ( Indonesia ). The route to Australia was abandoned shortly afterwards due to insufficient utilization. With the Hawker Siddeley HS 748, Air Ceylon set up a new daily scheduled service to Malé ( Maldives ) in the early 1970s . A second machine of this type was purchased in August 1975 to replace the Douglas DC-3 on national routes.
The planned purchase of a Douglas DC-8-63 was discarded in the summer of 1973 for financial reasons. Instead, the company rented a Douglas DC-8-32 from the Belgian Pomair ( registration number : OO-TCP) as the second long-haul aircraft from January to June 1974 , and from August 1974 to May 1975 a Convair CV-990 from Swissair (HB-ICH), then a second Douglas DC-8-53 from UTA (F-BJLB) and in 1976 a decommissioned Boeing 720 from United Airlines (N64696). These wet-leased aircraft only had the Air Ceylon logo on the fuselage.
The collaboration with UTA ended the company was planning the future together with in September 1976. Air Siam two wide-body aircraft type Lockheed L-1011 to operate on European routes, which was prevented by the bankruptcy of Thai society in February 1977th Air Ceylon then put a Boeing 720B leased from Templewood Aviation in addition to its Douglas DC-8-53 from March 1977 and, from July 1977, a Douglas DC-8-43 leased from Air Canada, with its own livery and Sri Lankan license plates Long distance a. Two Vickers VC10 leased from Gulf Air replaced the leased Boeing 720B in December 1977.
The Sri Lankan government decided in 1977 to start over because of the dire financial situation of the state-owned company and the high losses in its operational business. For this purpose, the two successor companies Sri Lanka Airways and Sri Lanka International Airways were founded in January 1978 , which were to continue flight operations from April 1, 1978, but never took up. On March 31, 1978 Air Ceylon stopped all long-haul flights. The Douglas DC-8-53 was then sold, the two Vickers VC10s and the Douglas DC-8-43 returned to the lessor. With the remaining two Hawker Siddeley HS 748 and the Hawker Siddeley Trident, Air Ceylon then continued to operate national scheduled services and international flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Madras, Male and Singapore. The final cessation of operations took place on August 31, 1979. Only one day later, the successor company Air Lanka , founded on January 10, 1979, began flight operations. The last Hawker Siddeley HS 748 of Air Ceylon was taken over by the Sri Lankan Air Force, the Hawker Siddeley Trident was permanently stored in Colombo and used by Air Lanka as a cabin simulator for the training of flight attendants .
fleet
Fleet at the end of operations
In spring 1979 the fleet consisted of a Hawker Siddeley HS 748 and a Hawker Siddeley Trident.
Previously deployed aircraft
Air Ceylon has operated the following types of aircraft in the course of its history:
- Boeing 720 and 720B (leased from 1976 to 1977)
- Convair CV-990 (1974 to 1975 leased from Swissair )
- De Havilland Comet 4 (leased from BOAC 1962 to 1965 )
- Douglas C-47 (operated from 1947 to 1976)
- Douglas C-54 (leased from Australian National Airways from 1949 to 1953 )
- Douglas DC-8-32, DC-8-43, DC-8-53 (operated from 1972 to 1978)
- Hawker Siddeley HS 748 (operated from 1964 to 1979)
- Hawker Siddeley Trident 1E (operated 1969 to 1979)
- Lockheed L-188 (leased from KLM from 1960 to 1961 )
- Lockheed L-749 (leased from KLM from 1956 to 1958 )
- Lockheed L-1049G (leased from KLM from 1958 to 1960 )
- Nord 262 (operated from 1967 to 1969)
- Sud Aviation Caravelle 10R (briefly leased from SATA )
- Vickers VC10-1101 and VC10-1151 (1965 to 1971 leased from BOAC and 1977 to 1978 leased from Gulf Air )
Incidents
- On December 21, 1949, a Douglas DC-3 / C-47A ( aircraft registration number : VP-CAT ) with 24 people on board had an accident while landing at Tiruchirapalli Airport (India). Three crew members and one passenger were injured and the aircraft was written off as a total loss.
- On September 7, 1978, an explosive device exploded on board a Hawker-Siddeley HS 748 Srs.2 ( 4R-ACJ ) before taking off from Colombo-Ratmalana Airport . The plane was to be transferred to Colombo-Katunayake Airport without passengers . The two pilots, who were the only occupants on the plane, survived the attack. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Flight International, May 6, 1948
- ^ Flight International, February 3, 1949
- ^ Flight International, June 23, 1949
- ^ Flight International, January 25, 1950
- ^ Flight International, April 17, 1953
- ^ Flight International, June 19, 1953
- ^ Air Ceylon, flight plan, March 1, 1955
- ↑ Martin Staniland: Government Birds, Air Transport and the State in Western Europe . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2003, ISBN 0-7425-0124-8 .
- ^ Flight International, March 16, 1956
- ^ Flight international, March 6, 1959
- ^ Flight International, September 9, 1960
- ^ Flight International, November 7, 1958
- ^ Flight International, March 20, 1959
- ^ Flight International, September 14, 1961
- ^ Flight International, April 10, 1969
- ^ Flight International, April 15, 1965
- ^ Flight International, June 3, 1965
- ^ Flight International, May 29, 1969
- ↑ Rzjets, Hawker Siddeley Trident, 4R-ACN
- ^ Flight International, October 14, 1971
- ^ Air Ceylon, flight plan April 1, 1972
- ^ Air Ceylon, flight plan May 2, 1974
- ^ Flight International, August 14, 1975
- ^ Flight International, July 21, 1973
- ↑ SkyStef's Aviation Page, Douglas DC-8-32, OO-TCP
- ↑ Aviation History of Switzerland, Convair CV-990-30A, HB-ICH ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Historic Airlines and Airliners, photo of the Douglas DC-8-53 F-BJLB
- ↑ Aerobernie, Fleet List of Air Ceylon
- ^ Flight International, June 26, 1976
- ^ Flight International, May 22, 1976
- ↑ Templewood Aviation International Limited, May we fly for you, 9G-24 ( Memento of March 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Rzjets, Douglas DC-8-43, 4R-ACT
- ^ Flight International, April 15, 1978
- ^ Flight International, April 22, 1978
- ^ Flight International, April 28, 1979, p. 1400
- ^ Flight International, April 28, 1979, p. 1333
- ↑ a b Flight International, July 26, 1980
- ^ Flight International, September 15, 1979
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 79
- ↑ JP aircraft markings and JP airline-fleets international, various years
- ↑ Flight International, various annual issues
- ^ Accident report DC-3 VP-CAT , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 2, 2019.
- ^ Accident report HS-748 4R-ACJ , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 2, 2019.
