Aquila Airways
| Aquila Airways | |
|---|---|
| IATA code : | AQ |
| ICAO code : | AQ |
| Call sign : | AQUILA |
| Founding: | 1948 |
| Operation stopped: | 1958 |
| Seat: | London |
| Home airport : | Southampton |
| Company form: | Limited |
| Management: | Barry T. Aikman |
| Sales: | GBP 336,751 (10/1/1954 - 9/30/1955) |
| Fleet size: | 3 |
| Aims: | international |
| Aquila Airways ceased operations in 1958. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Aquila Airways was a British airline based in London . In the period after the Second World War, it operated scheduled and charter services with flying boats .
history
Aquila Airways was founded in 1948 by former RAF pilot Barry Aikmen. Aikmen tried to use flying boats to reach destinations that were not accessible to land planes at the time.
The company was based in Southampton , where it took over existing BOAC facilities for flying boat operations. a. Building for passenger handling and a floating dock. A maintenance base was maintained in Hamble, where it was possible to pull the flying boats out of the water and onto land for maintenance purposes.
The line service from Southampton to Madeira was originally supposed to open in 1948. This was prevented by the Berlin blockade , as the Aquila flying boats were chartered to support the Berlin Airlift . The Aquila flying boats flew from the Elbe in Hamburg to the Großer Wannsee in Berlin. A total of 265 flights were completed, for which the Aquila used three flying boats. After ice formed on the Havel lakes in winter, the flights were discontinued and not resumed in spring either, as more powerful land-based machines were now available in sufficient numbers.
On March 24, 1949, the liner service to Madeira was opened. Later a stopover was made in Lisbon and the route continued to La Palma . In 1949 and 1950 a seasonal scheduled service to Jersey was offered, from 1950 also flights to Edinburgh and Glasgow . From 1957, Montreux was also served . From the same year scheduled flights from Marseille to Corfu and Palermo were realized.
Aquila Airways also completed charter flights, including a. for troop transports to Lagos and Freetown and in 1956 to Fanara for the evacuation of the British from the Suez Canal zone . The longest flight was from Southampton to the Falkland Islands in 1952 . Cargo flights were also completed, including a. the equipment for the shooting of the film Moby Dick was transported.
In March 1953 Aquila became part of the British Aviation Group (Britavia) in order to raise capital for further expansion. In 1956, Barry Aikman left the company. The Portuguese government subsidized the company's flight operations between Lisbon and Madeira at the end of the 1950s, but scheduled flights on this route were unprofitable. Aquila Airways applied for higher state subsidies in the spring of 1958, but this was rejected by the Portuguese government. The British company then announced in the summer of 1958 that it would cease operations on October 1, 1958. At the same time, the Portuguese ARTOP Linhas Aéreas started operations between Lisbon and Madeira with flying boats.
fleet
In total, Aquila used 20 flying boats, namely
- 13 Short p. 25 Sunderland
- 2 Short Sandringham, the civil version of the Short Sunderland, and
- 5 Short p.45 Solent
When flight operations were discontinued, three S.45 Solent were still in operation.
Incidents
On November 15, 1957, the Solent G-AKNU had an accident on the Isle of Wight . 45 of the 58 inmates were killed. The Sandringham G-ANAK suffered a total write-off on the base at Hamble before being taken into service. The Solent G-ANAJ City of Funchal was thrown ashore in a storm off Madeira on September 26, 1956 and so badly damaged that it had to be scrapped.
See also
literature
- Norman Hull: Aquila to Madeira, Silver Link Publishing 2010, ISBN 978-1-85794-351-1
Web links
Airlines from the United Kingdom , British Overseas Territories and the Crown possessions of the British Crown
