Air Luxor

Air Luxor
IATA code :	LK
ICAO code :	LXR
Call sign :	AIRLUXOR
Founding:	1988
Operation stopped:	2006
Seat:	Lisbon , Portugal
Home airport :	Lisbon airport
Company form:	Sociedade Anónima
IATA prefix code :	040
Management:	Paulo Mirpuri
Number of employees:	500 (2005)
Fleet size:	7 (2005)
Aims:	international
Air Luxor ceased operations in 2006. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

Air Luxor was a Portuguese airline based at Lisbon Airport that ceased operations in 2006.

history

A Boeing 767-200 had Air Luxor briefly in 2001 by LAM leased

Air Luxor was founded in Lisbon in 1988 by the Portuguese Mirpuri family as an air taxi company. Flight operations began the following year with two Aero Commander (500S and 690B) and a Cessna P206 . The company put its first jet aircraft into service in the early 1990s, a Cessna 501 Citation I. In the spring of 1996, the Managing Director Paulo Mirpuri was a collaboration with the US Executive Jet Aviation , a, which within Air Luxor company division NetJets - Transportes Aéreos was created. In the same year, Air Luxor leased a Cessna 500 Citation and seven Cessna S550 Citation IIs from its US partner company , which they used on international business flights under the new NetJets Europe brand . At the same time, Air Luxor opened branches at Exeter (Great Britain) and Paris-Le Bourget (France) airports , where initially a Cessna 550 and a Dassault Falcon 20 E were stationed. By spring 1997, she set up another branch in London-Luton and a subsidiary in Macau (then a Portuguese colony).

In June 1997, hired Air Luxor , a widebody aircraft of the type Lockheed L-1011-500 Tristar of Air Madeira , which they followed for this company and other companies in the wet-lease began. She took over a second commercial aircraft of this type in 1999. The fleet was expanded considerably from the beginning of 1999 with business aircraft of the types BAe 125 , Dassault Falcon 2000 and Hawker 800P . Air Luxor operated five Cessna 550, one Cessna 560XL , three Cessna 650 , two BAe 125, ten Hawker 800P, one Dassault Falcon 20E, two Dassault Falcon 900 and five Dassault Falcon 2000 in business aviation under the Netjets Europe brand . At that time, another eight Dassault Falcon 2000s were on order. At the same time, two Airbus A320-200s and two Lockheed L-1011-500s were used on charter flights and on behalf of other airlines. In the course of a restructuring of the group of companies, the Netjets division was outsourced as an independent company in 2001. At the same time, Air Luxor ceded most of the business jets to the new company. In the spring of 2002, the company used five Airbus A320s and two Lockheed Tristars in charter traffic and as part of ACMI rentals for other airlines. In addition, one Cessna 560XL, Cessna 750, Dassault Falcon 20E, Dassault Falcon 900 and Dassault Falcon 2000 were still registered on Air Luxor . The first Airbus A330-300 was added to the fleet on December 4, 2002, and a second followed on June 30, 2003.

In September 2002, Air Luxor STP ( IATA code : C2, ICAO code : ALU) was established in São Tomé and Príncipe , in which the Portuguese company held a 49% stake. In the following year, the group founded another subsidiary in Guinea-Bissau, Air Luxor GB (IATA code: L8, ICAO code: LXG) . The African companies used Airbus A320s leased from the parent company and primarily operated scheduled flights to Lisbon.

In spring 2005 the company had four Airbus A320-200s, two Airbus A330-300s and two Lockheed L-1011-500s, the latter being leased to the Portuguese charter airline Luzair . In October 2005 it was announced that Air Luxor would be renamed Hi Fly the following year in order to differentiate it more from the Luxembourg Luxair and the Egyptian Luxor Air . In the same month, the Portuguese-Canadian Longstock Financial Group submitted a takeover bid for the airline, primarily interested in its ACMI leasing business. During the sales negotiations, Paulo Mirpuri, the managing director of Air Luxor , founded a new company called Hi Fly , to which he outsourced Air Luxor's charter flight business .

At the beginning of July 2006, Air Luxor , which until then had carried out the flight operations for the sister company Hi Fly , was sold to the Longstock Financial Group for 150 million euros . The Longstock Financial Group also took over two Airbus A320s that Air Luxor had leased from the leasing company AWAS on a long-term basis since May 2004 . At the beginning of September 2006, the two aircraft that the company was using at the time for the French Aigle Azur were briefly confiscated in Paris-Orly because of open leasing rates . After the French authorities had to shut down both machines again in October 2006 for the same reason, Air Luxor 's Air Operator Certificate was withdrawn by the Portuguese aviation authority in the same month. At the same time, its two African subsidiaries also ceased flight operations.

fleet

The first Cessna 501 Citation I of the Air Luxor

In the course of its history the company operated the following types of aircraft:

Aero Commander 500S and 690B Airbus A319-100 Airbus A320-200 Airbus A330-300 Antonov An-12 BP BAe 125-800A Boeing 767-200ER Cessna P206 Cessna 500 Citation Cessna 501 Citation I.

Cessna S550 Citation II Cessna 560XL Citation Excel Cessna 750 Citation X Dassault Falcon 20 E Dassault Falcon 900 Dassault Falcon 2000 Lockheed L-1011-385 Tristar 500 Raytheon Hawker 800 P Short 330-200

Incidents

On February 4, 1998, an Antonov An-12 ( registration number : LZ-SFG ) had an accident as a result of a double engine failure shortly after take-off from the Lajes military airfield, which is also used by civilians . Air Luxor had the machine for transport of airmail between Lisbon and the Azores in wetlease by the Bulgarian Air Sofia rented. All seven occupants of the cargo plane were killed in the crash.

See also

• Former Airlines List (Europe)

Web links

Commons : Air Luxor  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 90/91
2. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 92/93
3. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 96/97
4. ↑ ^{a b} JP airline-fleets international, Edition 97/98
5. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 2001/02
6. ↑ JP airlines-fleets international, Edition 2002/03
7. ↑ Rzjets, Air Luxor Airbus A330-322, CS-TMT (in English), accessed on March 5, 2018
8. ↑ Rzjets, Air Luxor Airbus A330-322, CS-TQF (in English), accessed on March 5, 2018
9. ^ Europa Publications, Africa South of the Sahara 2004, 33rd Edition, London 2003, ISBN 1-85743-183-9
10. ↑ ^{a b c} JP airline-fleets international, Edition 2005/06
11. ^ L'Echo Touristique, Air Luxor change de nom, October 11, 2005 (in French), accessed March 9, 2018
12. ↑ Publico, Grupo luso-canadiano compra Air Luxor, July 4, 2006 (in Portuguese), accessed March 5, 2018
13. ^ Ch-Aviation, Air Luxor News Update, September 9, 2006 , accessed March 10, 2018
14. ↑ Ch-Aviation, Air Luxor News Update, November 10, 2006 (in English), accessed March 10, 2018
15. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, various years
16. ↑ Aviation Safety Network, accident summary: Antonow An-12BP, LZ-SFG, February 4, 1998 (in English), accessed on March 10, 2018