Central African Airways

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Central African Airways
Central African Airways logo
Vickers Viking of the CAA (1953)
IATA code : CE
ICAO code : CE
Call sign :
Founding: June 1, 1946
Operation stopped: 1967
Seat: Salisbury , Southern Rhodesia
Company form: State company
Number of employees: 1155 (1960)
Fleet size: 15 (1960)
Aims:
Central African Airways ceased operations in 1967. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation.

Central African Airways (CAA) was a forerunner of Air Zimbabwe , which operated scheduled flights in East Africa from 1946 to 1967.

history

The history of Central African Airways begins on June 1, 1946, an airline jointly founded by Southern Rhodesia, (now Zimbabwe ), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia ) and Nyassaland (now Malawi ), from which the shares are based the countries distributed in the order mentioned to 50%, 35% and 15%.

The CAA acquired its personnel and aircraft from the Southern Rhodesia Air Service (SRAS), an airline and reconnaissance unit that was formed at the beginning of World War II after the disbandment of Rhodesia And Nyassaland Airway (RANA).

Central African Airways did not stop at the machines it had taken over from SRAS. She soon acquired five De Havilland Doves and three Vickers Vikings . After all, the CAA had seven doves and twelve Vikings. The company expanded rapidly and served destinations from Nairobi to Johannesburg , from Blantyre to Maun .

In 1948, CAA started the first air freight transport in Africa with two Bristol 170 Freighters, which were leased from the Department of Civil Aviation in London. They were used for the so-called "copper dealer service" between Johannesburg and Ndola via Bulawayo and Lusaka and between Salisbury (today Harare ) and Lusaka. This service was expanded in 1948 to Dar-es-Salaam and Lindi in Tanganyika (now Tanzania ) via Kasama in Northern Rhodesia and Mbeya in Tanganyika.

In the first six months of operation, the aircraft achieved almost 250,000 ton-miles and thus a load factor of 48%. However, the considerable technical problems of these machines led CAA to terminate the contract in December 1949. These problems mainly affected the engines.

CAA flew many so-called "social routes" that never refinanced. It supplied many remote places deep in the bush, for which this air traffic was the only contact with the outside world. The runways became elementary for life in this region during this period, and they were mostly cleared terrain that was somewhat leveled and had a covered round hut four meters in diameter as a terminal. There were also runways like in Mongu, which were paved with three million bricks.

The two Bristols were replaced in 1951 by the Canadian De Havilland Canada Beaver , single-engine, angular aircraft for short runways, simple and practical like a VW bus back then. They were initially used on routes from Bulawayo and Harare to Gwelo (now Gweru ), Gatooma (now Kadoma ), Queque (now Kwekwe ), Umtali (now Mutare ) and Fort Victoria (now Masvingo ). But this company lost its customers with the widening and asphalting of the roads in the country. The Beavers were therefore increasingly used in Northern Rhodesia and Nyassaland.

However, the CAA dealt the death knell for the long-haul flights with Vikings by the British BOAC when they set up a line from London to Livingstone and thus ruined the highly profitable route of the CAA to Nairobi. CAA tried to return the favor with a line to London, but the crash of one of the Viking machines on Lake Tanganyika due to material fatigue in the wings ended this attempt. Back then, the flight from Harare to London did not take ten hours as it does today, but four days with numerous stopovers for refueling and overnight stays. But that was still much faster than the mail ship, which took at least a fortnight to Cape Town. There were sandwiches and cookies on the way.

Vickers Viscount of Central African Airways, 1957

After that, the Vikings were only used on shorter routes, for example to Durban, which made this city a popular beach destination for the Rhodesians. But in 1956/57 they were finally retired and replaced by more popular, also less susceptible Douglas DC-3s , which had previously only been used on routes whose passages were too large for the Beaver and too small for the Viking. The decisive factor, however, was the purchase of Vickers Viscount Type 748 - with spare parts and replacement engines just under two million pounds, which was an enormous amount for such a small airline. The first of these machines arrived on April 25, 1956 and was used to London via Northern Rhodesia, Uganda , Sudan , Libya , Malta , Italy . Then four more of these machines were added by July. One of them crashed on August 9, 1958 while approaching Benghazi .

Suspension of long-haul flights

In September 1958, however, the route to London was discontinued because CAA was unable to compete with major airlines. CAA sold its rights to the route very advantageously to BOAC and henceforth concentrated on regional and national routes.

In regional transport, CAA offered organized trips. SKYCOAST was a flight from Salisbury to Durban and from there a boat trip to Cape Town and back and became very popular. SKYBUS was a flight to Blantyre that was soon extended to Lilongwe and Fort Jameson (now Chipata ), Lusaka and Ndola. That was mass traffic with light canvas seats.

The increasing demand required larger and faster aircraft. Two BAC 1-11 were ordered in September 1962 and should be delivered from June 1965. Until then, CAA was renting a Douglas DC-6 from Alitalia . But the political development was different. The Central African Federation was founded in 1953 and was dissolved in late 1963 by independence from Zambia and 1964 from Malawi. Both governments now wished to have their own airline. This initially failed due to a lack of machines, maintenance facilities and personnel, so that the CAA's accountability only changed because it was partly assigned to the departments of the transport ministers. Independent of this, supporting areas of the CAA were set up in order to be able to work in the individual states. These were Air Malawi Ltd., Air Rhodesia (Pvt) Ltd. and Zambia Airways Ltd. Maintenance remained with CAA but was given branches in Zambia and Malawi. The DC-3's fleet was split between the three countries and that of the Beaver between Zambia and Malawi. Rhodesia had no need for these types of aircraft. The machines have now been repainted and given new emblems.

The individual airlines soon turned out to be profitable and performed surprisingly well. The blow came when the government of Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence on November 11, 1965, which resulted in immediate sanctions. With the exception of the Portuguese TAP and the South African SAA , all other airlines suspended their flights to Rhodesia. The leasing contracts for the DC-6 have been terminated and an embargo has been imposed on spare parts. Two BAC 1-11 had not yet been delivered at this time. The now deteriorating relations between the governments of the three countries led to the dissolution of the CAA at the end of 1967.

fleet

During its existence, Central African Airways operated the following types of aircraft:

Incidents

  • On March 17, 1955, a Vickers Viking 1B of Central African Airways (VP-YEX) touched down in front of the runway during a heavy rain shower at Salisbury Airport (Rhodesia) and slid another 300 to 400 meters. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair. All 28 occupants, 5 crew members and 23 passengers survived.
  • On October 5, 1956, a Vickers Viking 1B of Central African Airways (VP-YMO) crashed on a training flight three kilometers north of Salisbury Airport (Rhodesia). The two pilots were killed.
  • On August 9, 1958, a Vickers Viscount 748D of Central African Airways (VP-YNE) from Wadi Halfa (Sudan) flew 9 kilometers southeast of Benghazi Airport (Libya) into hilly terrain. It is possible that the pilots who had started the flight 18 hours earlier in Salisbury (Rhodesia) and had already made other stopovers in Ndola, Entebbe and Khartoum played a role. In the accident, 36 of the 54 occupants were killed.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ World Airline Directory. Flight International. April 8, 1960. p. 495
  2. ^ World Airline Directory. Flight International. April 8, 1960. p. 495
  3. ^ Ulrich Klee, Frank Bucher et al .: jp airline-fleets international . Zurich Airport 1966–1967.
  4. ↑ Accident report Viking 1B VP-YEY , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 10, 2020.
  5. ↑ Accident report Viking 1B VP-YEX , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 10, 2020.
  6. ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty compendium part 68 (English), March 1998, pp. 98/26.
  7. ↑ Accident report Viking 1B VP-YMO , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 10, 2020.
  8. ↑ Accident report Viscount 700D VP-YNE , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 28, 2018.