RFG - regional flight
| RFG - regional flight | |
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| IATA code : | VG |
| ICAO code : | RFG |
| Call sign : | RFG |
| Founding: | 1976 |
| Operation stopped: | 1993 |
| Merged with: | Nuremberg Air Service |
| Seat: |
Dortmund , Germany
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| Operational bases: | |
| Home airport : | Dortmund Airport |
| Passenger volume: | 145,000 (1989) |
| Fleet size: | 8th |
| Aims: | National and international |
| RFG - Regionalflug merged with Nürnberger Flugdienst in 1993 . The information in italics relates to the last status before the takeover. | |
RFG - regional flight (also travel and industrial flight , in the external appearance and shortened only RFG ) was a German airline .
history
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The RFG - Regionalflug was founded in 1976 by the two pilots Heinrich Hiby and Reinhard Santner. The Dortmund-based company, which was initially called Reise- und Industrieflug , carried out air taxi and charter flights with a rented Piper Navajo and a Cessna 414 . Two years later, sightseeing flights and the summer seaside resort service were taken over from Aerowest, which previously employed the pilots for the RFG.
However, it became clear that new financial resources and increased economic knowledge were essential for the continued existence of society. As a result, Heinrich Hiby sold his shares to the plaster manufacturer Albrecht Knauf and left the company. In December 1978, thanks to a special permit, regular flight operations from Dortmund Airport could begin. A Cessna 404 was used for this . Initially operating on one side only from Dortmund to Munich , the route was soon served five times a day in both directions. In 1982 the RFG had achieved a seat load factor of around 70%. In addition, a connection to Stuttgart was established on April 1981 with another Cessna 404 ; However, the crash of a machine and poor utilization prompted the new route to be discontinued. The newly added international connections to Klagenfurt and Salzburg also turned out to be unprofitable, as they could not be flown economically with the price calculation set by the Austrian authorities.
In 1982 , a Paderborn- based company turned to the RFG with Flight Travel Service , which was 49% owned by Nixdorf and other industrial companies. Together they signed a contract to operate two Cessna 404s on the Paderborn - Munich and Paderborn - Frankfurt routes . In the same year, the first of what would later be six Swearingen Metroliner II was acquired , in order to transport 32,700 passengers in 1984. A Dornier 228-100 was also operated in wet lease for 3 months during the same period . It turned out, however, that this type of aircraft with only 15 seats was clearly too small for the RFG.
Reinhard Santner and the managing director of the Nürnberger Flugdienst , Hans Rudolf Wöhrl , decided in 1985 to jointly order ATR 42 aircraft . With the intention that the two companies would benefit from a better negotiating position, each of the two companies secured two aircraft and two further options. As a consequence, the RFG sold all single-engine aircraft and sold the sightseeing flights and the seaside resort service to Bernd Walter and his flight school .
Dortmund Airport also realized the existing potential of regional air traffic and accordingly extended its runway, which is only 700 meters long, to 1,250 meters. However, airport opponents initially only obtained the use of 1020 meters in court. This meant that the train was too short for an ATR 42, so that RFG had to station the first machine delivered at Paderborn Airport. In August 1987, Dortmund Airport was able to prevail in court and RFG stationed the second ATR 42 at the same.
At the same time, the company also entered the charter flight business and introduced the first international connection to London . Together with the receipt of two more ATR 42s, 145,000 passengers were recorded in 1989. The company continued to expand unhindered, adding the connections Paderborn - Nuremberg , Dortmund - Dresden and Paderborn - Leipzig to its own portfolio. With the beginning of September 28, 1990 flights to Berlin were also carried out; Until the arrival of the fifth ATR 42 in March 1991, it was necessary to hire third-party aircraft due to insufficient capacities. As a result, RFG ordered six more ATR 72s .
After Albrecht Knauf had previously acquired 30% of the shares in NFD Luftverkehrs AG , he acquired the remaining shares in 1992 and finally merged RFG - Regionalflug and Nürnberger Flugdienst to form Eurowings NFD + RFG Luftverkehrs AG . The pilots of the much smaller RFG were subsequently retrained in the NFD procedures, mostly in an extremely questionable manner.
Destinations
In addition to charter flights, numerous regional connections within Germany were offered.
fleet
Fleet at the end of operations
When operations were transferred in January 1993, the fleet consisted of eight ATR 42s .
Previously deployed aircraft
Previously one had also operated aircraft of the following types:
Incidents
- In January 1982 a Cessna 404 ( aircraft registration D-ICRH ) got off the runway during a transfer flight during landing, crashed into a hangar and caught fire. The machine was to be brought from Düsseldorf to Dortmund; however, the altimeter was set incorrectly due to the pilot's visual impairment. The pilot, the only occupant, was killed.
- On February 5, 1987, a Swearingen Merlin IV (D-IEWK) coming from Dortmund was flown well below the prescribed decision height when approaching Munich Airport in bad weather . The very late and deep go- around resulted in a belly landing . After sliding around 300 m and after the main landing gear had collapsed, the machine came to a standstill in a snow-covered field a good 150 m from the runway. All 16 occupants survived the total write-off.
See also
literature
- Joachim Wölfer: German passenger aviation from 1955 until today . ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-8132-0477-4 .
- Karl-Dieter Seifert: German air traffic 1955-2000 . World traffic, liberalization, globalization (= Die deutsche Luftfahrt . Band 29 ). Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-7637-6121-7 .
- Rolf Wurster: By plane to the provinces . The long way of regional air traffic. Book on Demands, Battenberg 2001, ISBN 3-8311-1637-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b ch-aviation: RFG - Regionalflug , accessed on June 4, 2015
- ↑ jp airline fleets 1991, p. 124
- ↑ a b Wölfer, 1995, p. 124.
- ↑ Seifert, 2001, pp. 137-138.
- ↑ Seifert, 2001, p. 183.
- ↑ Seifert, 2001, pp. 187-189.
- ↑ Wölfer, 1995, p. 125.
- ↑ Seifert, 2001, p. 221.
- ^ Wurster, 2001, p. 110.
- ↑ Wurster, 2001, p. 112 (behavior of NFD pilots towards RFG pilots), p. 114 (behavior of NFD pilots towards RFG pilots; missing and incorrect training manuals), p. 115 (unqualified test pilots), P. 116 (regulations and procedures for short runways), p. 117 (manipulated performance data; incorrect engine-out procedures), p. 118 (divergent pay for RFG and NFD pilots).
- ↑ Seifert, 2001, p. 382.
- ↑ Seifert, 2001, p. 138.
- ^ Accident report D-ICRH, Aviation Safety Network / Wikibase (English), accessed on June 25, 2016.
- ^ Accident report D-IEWK, Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on June 25, 2016.
