Air Mali (1960)
| Air Mali | |
|---|---|
|
|
| IATA code : | MY |
| ICAO code : | AIM |
| Call sign : | AIR MALI |
| Founding: | 1960 |
| Operation stopped: | 1988 |
| Seat: |
Bamako , Mali
|
| Home airport : | Bamako airport |
| IATA prefix code : | 091 |
| Number of employees: | 577 (March 1988) |
| Fleet size: | 3 (February 1988) |
| Aims: | international |
| Air Mali ceased operations in 1988. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Air Mali (officially Société Nationale Air Mali ) was a state company of the Republic of Mali . The international scheduled airline ceased operations in 1988 for financial reasons.
history
Air Mali was founded on October 27, 1960 with a start-up capital of 50 million CFA francs as the state airline of the Republic of Mali in Bamako , which had obtained its independence from France that same year . The original plan of ceding 45 percent of the company's shares to private investors was not implemented, so Air Mali remained fully state-owned for the duration of its existence.
To start flight operations, Great Britain provided the company with three Douglas DC-3s from British European Airways' inventory , which, however, could not initially be used due to a lack of pilots. After the American airline Pan Am had rejected a request for assistance from the Malian government to set up an air transport network, Czechoslovakia provided pilot training support from February 1961 and in 1963 delivered five Aero Ae-45s to the state-owned company. In addition, on March 20, 1961 , Air Mali concluded a cooperation with the Soviet airline Aeroflot , which then provided technical and logistical assistance to start flight operations. The first line route was established in the same year between Bamako and Gao and was flown twice a week with Douglas DC-3. In July 1961, Air Mali joined the IATA airline association . At the same time, the company took over two Ilyushin Il-18s , with which it opened its first international connection between Bamako and Paris in August 1961 . The route was flown with alternating stops in Casablanca and Marseille . Initially, Soviet crews carried out these flights.
International scheduled flights to Accra ( Ghana ) began in December 1961. As part of the cooperation with Aeroflot , Air Mali put Antonov An-2 aircraft into service on domestic routes in 1962 . The company received three Ilyushin Il-14s in 1963, with which they simultaneously opened a route between Bamako and Monrovia ( Liberia ). In the course of the 1960s, the route network was expanded to other West African countries. As a replacement for their Aero Ae-45 and Ilyushin Il-14, Air Mali took over aircraft of the Antonow An-24 type in 1968 , which were used in domestic and international traffic between Bamako and Niamey ( Niger ).
As the first jet aircraft , the company operated a leased Sud Aviation Caravelle III from January 1971 , which it replaced in July 1971 with a Boeing 727-100 leased from World Airways . Air Mali acquired this Boeing 727 in September 1974. Two brand-new De Havilland Canada DHC-6s were put into service in 1973 to replace the Douglas DC-3s. In the mid-1970s, the international route network included Paris, Marseille and Casablanca as well as the West African cities of Abidjan ( Ivory Coast ), Accra (Ghana), Brazzaville ( Republic of the Congo ), Conakry ( Guinea ), Douala ( Cameroon ), Freetown ( Sierra Leone ) and Monrovia (Liberia).
In early 1980, the company used an Antonov An-24, a Boeing 727-100, two De Havilland DHC-6s and an Ilyushin Il-18. In addition, Air Mali temporarily leased a Boeing 707 from Jugoslovenski Aerotransport and an Airbus A300 from Air Afrique for its route to Paris. The fleet was enlarged in August 1980 with a Sud Aviation Caravelle 10B and in June 1982 with a Boeing 737-200 , which Air Mali had acquired from Syrian Arab Airlines and Air Algérie . Flight operations, which were in deficit from the start, especially on the national lines, led to steadily increasing losses from the early 1980s onwards, so that the company gave up numerous routes and the Sud Aviation Caravelle 10B and its last Ilyushin Il-18 decommissioned in the spring of 1984. The Boeing 737 was leased to Aerolíneas Argentinas for one year in early 1985 and then to Britannia Airways on a long-term basis from spring 1986 . With the last two aircraft remaining, the company continued a severely restricted scheduled service that had to be temporarily interrupted when the Boeing 727 was in London Stansted for maintenance . Air Mali sold the internationally used Boeing 727 to Federal Express in July 1988 and in the same year also ceased operations on its domestic routes for economic reasons.
fleet
Fleet at the end of operations
At the time of the cessation of operations, the fleet consisted of an Antonov An-24, a Boeing 727-100 and a Boeing 737-200 leased to Britannia Airways .
Previously deployed aircraft
Air Mali has operated the following types of aircraft throughout its history:
- Aero Ae-45 (operated from 1963 to 1968)
- Airbus A300B4-200 (leased from Air Afrique in 1981 )
- Antonov An-2 (operated from 1962 to 1971)
- Antonov An-24 (operated from 1968 to 1988)
- Boeing 707-300C (leased from JAT-Jugoslovenski Aerotransport in 1979 )
- Boeing 727-100 (operated from 1971 to 1988)
- Boeing 737-200 (operated from 1982 to 1985, then leased)
- Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander (operated 1985)
- De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 (operated from 1973 to 1986)
- Douglas DC-3 (operated from 1961 to 1974)
- Ilyushin Il-14 (operated from 1963 to 1968)
- Ilyushin Il-18 (operated from 1961 to 1984)
- Sud Aviation Caravelle III and Caravelle 10B (operated in 1971 and from 1980 to 1984)
Incidents
- On November 5, 1966, an Ilyushin Il-14 ( registration : TZ-ABH ) flew in France against the Col de la Cayolle mountain pass . The machine was to be transferred from Zagreb to Marseille . All seven inmates were killed.
- On August 11, 1974, an Ilyushin Il-18 ( TZ-ABE ) had an accident in Burkina Faso due to a lack of fuel. The machine was on a charter flight from Bamako to Niamey ( Niger ). Due to the weather at the destination airport, the crew decided to switch to Ouagadougou , but did not reach the airport due to a navigation error . 47 of the 60 inmates were killed in the offshore landing .
- On June 21, 1983, a De Havilland Canada DHC-6-300 Twin Otter ( TZ-ACH ) hit about five kilometers from the runway at Bamako Airport . All seven people on board lost their lives.
- On February 22, 1985, an Antonov An-24 ( TZ-ACT ) had an accident after taking off from Timbuktu Airport due to an engine failure . Of the 52 occupants, only one survived.
- On May 15, 1985, a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander ( TZ-ACS ) had to be written off as a total loss. No information is available about the location or the circumstances of the incident.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Ben R. Guttery: Encyclopedia of African Airlines . McFarland & Company Inc., Jefferson 1998, ISBN 0-7864-0495-7 .
- ^ Philip Muehlenbeck: Czechoslovakia in Africa, 1945-1968 . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2016, ISBN 978-1-137-56144-2 .
- ^ Flight International, April 13, 1961
- ^ Air Mali, flight plan August 1963
- ^ Air Mali, flight plan June 1970
- ↑ Rzjets, Air Mali, Antonov An-24
- ↑ Rzjets, Air Mali, Sud Aviation Caravelle
- ↑ a b Rzjets, Air Mali, Boeing 727-173C, TZ-ADR
- ^ Air Mali, flight plan November 1975
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 80
- ↑ Rzjets, Air Mali
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 83
- ^ Flight International, April 1, 1989
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 89/90
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 88/89
- ↑ JP aircraft markings and JP airline-fleets international, various years
- ↑ Flight International, various annual issues
- ^ Aviation Safety Network, Ilyushin Il-14 TZ-ABH, November 5, 1966
- ^ Aviation Safety Network, Ilyushin Il-18 TZ-ABE, August 11, 1974
- ^ Aviation Safety Network, DHC-6-300 TZ-ACH, June 21, 1983
- ^ Aviation Safety Network, Antonov An-24 TZ-ACT, February 22, 1985
- ↑ Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, TZ-ACS, Crash of a Britten-Norman Islander in Mali 1985 ( Memento from March 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
