Air Tungaru

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Air Tungaru
Air Tungaru Boeing 737-200
IATA code : VK
ICAO code : TO DO
Call sign : TUNGARU
Founding: 1977
Operation stopped: 1996
Seat: Bikenibeu , KiribatiKiribatiKiribati 
Home airport : Bonriki airport
Company form: State company
IATA prefix code : 715
Number of employees: 45
Fleet size: 2
Aims: national
Air Tungaru ceased operations in 1996. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

Air Tungaru was the first Kiribati scheduled airline and the predecessor of today's Air Kiribati . The state-owned company based at Bonriki Airport ceased flight operations in July 1996.

history

Air Tungaru's Boeing 727-100 rented from 1981 to 1984

In the course of the emerging independence from Great Britain, Air Tungaru was founded on October 31, 1977 in Bikenibeu as the future state airline of the Republic of Kiribati on the then British Gilbert and Ellice Islands . Their name was derived from the Kiribati name of the Gilbert Islands . In the spring of 1978, the company leased a long-term Britten-Norman Trislander ( registration : DQ-FCC) from Fiji- based Air Pacific , which was responsible for regional air traffic between the Gilbert Islands until then Flight operations took place. In the following year, a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander was also acquired. In the summer of 1980 Air Tungaru employed 60 people and flew with its two planes from Bonriki Airport to seven destinations on the Gilbert Islands.

In the same year, the state-owned company planned to start international scheduled flights. For this purpose, a De Havilland DH.114 Heron was acquired from the Australian Kendell Airlines in May 1981 , with which Air Tungaru took up scheduled flights between Bonriki and Nadi (Fiji) in June 1981 . In parallel, the company leased a Boeing 727-100 American US from Evergreen International Airlines , in the wet-lease on a weekly connection from Bonriki over Kirimati to Honolulu ( Hawaii was used). In addition, Air Tungaru initially operated this machine in code share with the French UTA on weekly flights from Honolulu via Kiritimati to Tahiti ( French Polynesia ). The company ended the loss-making regular service to Hawaii in March 1984 and returned the Boeing 727 to the lessor. The connection to Nadi was discontinued in the same year and the De Havilland Heron operated on this route was sold in December 1984. In the spring of 1985, the fleet consisted of two Britten-Norman Trislanders and a CASA C-212 , which Air Tungaru had received brand new on March 20, 1982.

In February 1986, the Republic of Kiribati commissioned the American Aloha Airlines with weekly flights between Honolulu and Kiritimati, which were subsidized with 500,000 US dollars per year . Due to the high costs, Air Tungaru received the government contract in spring 1991 to operate this route again. For this purpose, it rented a Boeing 737-200 from the US American Valtec Airlines in March 1991 , which reopened the connection from Bonriki via Kiritimati to Honolulu in May 1991 and initially operated the flights in wet lease . Shortly thereafter, Air Tungaru decided to operate the rented Boeing 737 independently, whereupon the machine received a Kiribati license plate (T3-VAL) on July 13, 1992. The state-owned company now had to take care of the handling of the aircraft in Hawaii itself and was overwhelmed with this task. After only three more flight pairs, Air Tungaru gave up international operations in July 1991. The Boeing 737 was parked in Honolulu for the remainder of the leasing contract, which had been concluded until the end of 1992. At this time, the company continued to use two Britten-Norman Trislanders and a CASA 212 for domestic traffic.

At the beginning of the 1990s there were efforts to privatize the loss-making state-owned company, but no investors could be found. Air Tungaru's two Britten-Norman Trislanders were no longer airworthy in the mid-1990s , so they had to rent two Britten-Norman BN-2 Islanders for one year as replacement aircraft in June and September 1994, respectively . At that time, the Kiribati government decided to heavily indebted companies dissolve and be replaced by a new national airline. Although the successor Air Kiribati was founded on April 1, 1995 , Air Tungaru initially continued the national regular service with its CASA 212 and a repaired Britten-Norman Trislander. In July 1996 she ceased flight operations and ceded her two machines to Air Kiribati .

fleet

In the course of its history, the company operated a total of nine aircraft of the following types:

The nine aircraft included two that had previously been used in western Germany :

  • The De Havilland DH.114 Heron , used from 1981 to 1984, was originally delivered to the Air Force on May 21, 1957 with a special interior as CA + 001 . The machine served Chancellor Adenauer as a personal government aircraft .
  • The Boeing 727-30C , which was also rented as a wet lease, was taken over from the manufacturer by Lufthansa on April 28, 1967 as D-ABIO and operated until the end of 1978.

See also

Web links

Commons : Air Tungaru  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Flight International, July 26, 1980 (in English), accessed February 8, 2018
  2. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 79
  3. ↑ a b c Aussie Airliners, VH-CLW, de Havilland DH-114-2D Heron, c / n 14108 , accessed February 4, 2018
  4. ^ Air Tungaru, June 1981 flight plan , accessed February 8, 2018
  5. ↑ a b Rzjets, Boeing 727-030C, T3-ATB (in English), accessed on February 8, 2018
  6. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 85
  7. ↑ Rzjets, Air Tungaru, CASA 212-200, T3-ATC (in English), accessed on February 8, 2018
  8. ↑ Jetphotos, Boeing 737-214, T3-VAL, c / n: 20158, s / n: 192 (in English), accessed February 8, 2018
  9. ↑ Howard Van Trease: Atoll Politics: The Republic of Kiribati . Macmillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies, Christchurch / Suva 1993, ISBN 982-02-0081-4 .
  10. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 92/93
  11. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 93/94
  12. ^ Asian Development Bank, Technical Assistance to the Republic of Kiribati for the Commercialization and Privatization of Public Enterprises, April 1992 (in English), accessed February 6, 2018
  13. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 95/96
  14. ↑ a b c flydw.org.uk - Republic of Kiribati Aircraft Register , accessed February 8, 2018
  15. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 96/97
  16. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, Edition 97/98
  17. ↑ JP airline-fleets international, various years