Air charter
| Air charter | |
|---|---|
|
|
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| IATA code : | SF |
| ICAO code : | ACF |
| Call sign : | AIR CHARTER |
| Founding: | 1966 |
| Operation stopped: | 1998 |
| Seat: |
Paris , France
|
| Home airport : | Paris-Orly Airport |
| Fleet size: | 6th |
| Aims: | international |
| Air Charter ceased operations in 1998. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Air Charter was a French charter airline that also operated scheduled flights on behalf of Air France from the mid-1990s .
history
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Air Charter was founded on February 7, 1966 under the name Societé Aérienne Française d'Affrètements (SAFA) as a subsidiary of the airline Air France to offer charter services from Paris to the French Mediterranean coast. The start of flight operations took place on July 25, 1966 with two aircraft each of the types Sud Aviation Caravelle and Lockheed Super Constellation leased from the parent company . In the first year of its existence, the company carried 168,000 passengers.
SAFA was approved for international charter flights on May 14, 1969 and then changed its name to Air Charter International (ACI) on December 8, 1969 . In 1971 the company owned a 60 percent share in the French charter market and carried around 420,000 passengers with seven Caravelle machines. In the following year the first two Boeing 727-200s added to the fleet. In February 1978, the company signed long-term leasing contracts with the airlines Euralair and Europe Aéro Service (EAS) in order to use their aircraft during the summer months, which were in high demand. In the same year, the French airline Air Inter took a 20 percent stake in ACI. As a result of the investment, the company was able to use Air Inter aircraft at short notice on weekends and integrate other airports into the route network. In 1982 ACI first offered charter services to New York . The company did not operate the transatlantic route with its own aircraft, but with rented Boeing 747s from Air France .
In 1984 the company renamed itself Air Charter and introduced a new color scheme at the same time. In the 1980s, the company continuously expanded its route network. In addition to Paris, Lourdes in particular became an important location due to the heavy pilgrimage . In 1987 Air Charter flew regularly from 13 French airports to tourist destinations in Greece, Spain, Tunisia, Israel, Morocco, Malta, Egypt, Senegal and Turkey with its own aircraft. In addition, flights to the USA and Canada were carried out in cooperation with Air France . In 1988, the company carried more than two million passengers for the first time. In the same year Air Charter received its first wide-body aircraft, the Airbus A300 . Airbus A320 machines replaced the Boeing 727 from 1994.
Although Air Charter took over numerous routes in 1991 from Aéromaritime , which is part of the Air France group , the company's market share and number of passengers declined steadily in the 1990s. In order to improve the utilization of the aircraft, Air France ceded some of its scheduled routes to Air Charter from 1996 . First an Airbus A320 of the subsidiary was stationed in Guadeloupe in the winter of 1996/97 and used on scheduled flights to the USA. In the summer of 1997 Air Charter took over the scheduled connections from Paris to Palma , Málaga and Seville . Due to the continuing decline in the number of passengers and an unfavorable cost structure, Air France announced the economic end of the air charter in autumn 1998 . The flight operations ceased on October 24, 1998. In the last year of operation, the company carried 820,742 passengers.
fleet
The company used the following aircraft types in its own colors:
- Airbus A300B4-203
- Airbus A310-324
- Airbus A320-200
- Boeing 727-200
- Boeing 737-200, 737-400 and 737-500
- Sud Aviation Caravelle III and 10B
In addition, the company used the following aircraft types with third-party paint on its own route network:
- Boeing 747-200 of Air France
- Dassault Mercure of Air Inter
- Fokker F28 of TAT
- Lockheed Super Constellation of Air France
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Leisure Airlines of Europe, K. Vomhof, 2001
- ↑ JP aircraft-markings 73
- ↑ Boeing 727, A. Balch, 1992
- ↑ jp airline-fleets international 88/89
- ↑ jp airline-fleets international 94/95
- ↑ jp airline-fleets international, various years
