Royal Jordanian

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Royal Jordanian
الملكية الأردنية
Royal Jordanian logo
Airbus A330-200 of the Royal Jordanian
IATA code : RJ
ICAO code : RJA
Call sign : JORDANIAN
Founding: 1963
Seat: Amman , Jordan
JordanJordan 
Turnstile :

Queen Alia International Airport

Home airport : Queen Alia International Airport
Company form: Corporation
IATA prefix code : 512
Management: Stefan Pichler ( President & CEO )
Number of employees: 4,400 (2008)
Passenger volume: 5.45 million (2010)
Alliance : oneworld
Frequent Flyer Program : Royal Plus
Fleet size: 25th
Aims: National and international
Website: www.rj.com

Royal Jordanian ( Arabic الملكية الأردنية, DMG al-Malakiyya al-Urdunniyya ), previously Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines , is Jordan's national airline based in Amman and based at Queen Alia International Airport . She is a member of the Arab Air Carriers Organization and the oneworld aviation alliance .

history

Foundation and first years

Caravelle 10R of Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines

In 1961, the Jordanian government decided not to renew the operating certificates of Air Jordan, founded in 1950, and Jordan International Airlines, founded in 1954 , so that both companies had to cease operations. At the same time, a new Jordanian airline was founded on September 1, 1961, Jordan Airways , in which the Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) held 25% and the State of Jordan 35%. The remaining shares were held by private investors. Jordan Airways opened its flight operations on September 29, 1961 and deployed two Vickers Viscounts leased from MEA . In 1963, King Hussein decided to terminate the cooperation with MEA and instead set up a new Jordanian airline.

The airline ALIA, founded on December 9, 1963, named after the eldest daughter of the king, took over the route network of Jordan Airways as well as their two leased Vickers Viscount, with which operations began on December 15, 1963. As a replacement for the Viscounts, two Handley HPR 7 Dart Heralds were procured at the beginning of 1964 , which were used until they were replaced by Sud Aviation Caravelle in 1965. With the availability of the Caravelle as a versatile aircraft from July 28, 1965, ALIA was able to expand its route network to more distant destinations such as Rome and Paris . To support the Caravelle, ALIA rented some four-engine Vickers Viscounts between November 1966 and March 1967 , which were then replaced by the Fokker F-27s that were also rented .

In February 1968, ALIA received its first own F-27. With the further expansion of the route network to more distant destinations on the Indian subcontinent , ALIA procured two Boeing 707-320s , the first of which was handed over on January 26, 1971. These aircraft were followed on November 30, 1972 by the first Boeing 720-030B , which Lufthansa acquired second-hand . The successor to the Caravelle on medium-haul routes was the Boeing 727-200 , ALIA received the first of these aircraft on July 8, 1974.

Boeing 720-030B of ALIA, Paris-Orly 1978
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar of ALIA in 1984 in Geneva

The Boeing 747-200B , which was procured for use on routes to Western Europe and the Far East and delivered from April 13, 1977, proved to be uneconomical, which is why the smaller Lockheed L-1011-500 TriStar joined the fleet from September 11, 1981 .

After the previous home airport Amman-Marka, close to the city, became too small, Alia was able to move to the newly built Queen Alia International Airport in 1983 .

The first transatlantic destinations were New York City and Los Angeles from 1984 , each via Frankfurt am Main or London . The year 1986 ushered in the beginning of a comprehensive corporate renewal, which was reflected in December of that year in a new corporate design including the painting of the aircraft and the change of the company name from ALIA to Royal Jordanian Airlines .

Development since the 1990s

With the takeover of the first Airbus A310 , the company begins the change to a pure Airbus fleet . The successor to the Boeing 727-200 was the Airbus A320-200 , the first two machines were delivered in spring 1990. As a result of the Second Gulf War , Royal Jordanian had to cope with heavy financial losses, which is why a large part of the fleet was either leased to third parties or decommissioned.

The last Boeing 727 left the fleet in March 1996, followed by the TriStar in 1999. In August 2000, Royal Jordan received its first of five Airbus A340-200s , this type has since formed the backbone of the long-haul fleet and was only replaced by Boeing 787- in 2014 . 8 replaced.

In February 2001, Royal Jordanian was converted into a stock corporation and all shares in the company were transferred to the newly established state-owned holding Royal Jordanian Investments ( RJI ) with a view to partial privatization . In December 2007, 71 percent of the airline's shares were floated on the stock exchange. 29 percent of the shares remain with various organizations of the Jordanian government, others with the employees. The company was the first Levant airline to be privatized on such a large scale.

Royal Jordanian has been a full member of the oneworld aviation alliance since April 2007 .

Destinations

In addition to destinations in the Middle East, Royal Jordanian primarily serves European and numerous German-speaking destinations. The subsidiary Royal Wings also operates regional and feeder flights for Royal Jordanian. Royal Jordanian is almost the only airline from the Arab region that flies to Israel . Only Egyptair, as another airline from the Arab region, also serves this destination with its subsidiary Air Sinai . This was made possible by the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty .

Royal Jordanian has codeshare agreements with Aeroflot , Air Canada , Iberia , Malaysia Airlines , SriLankan Airlines , Syrian Arab Airlines , Thai Airways International and Etihad Airways .

fleet

Airbus A319-100 of the Royal Jordanian in oneworld special livery
Boeing 787-8 of the Royal Jordanian
Embraer 175 of the Royal Jordanian in Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion

Current fleet

As of March 2020, the Royal Jordanian fleet consists of 25 aircraft with an average age of 10.0 years:

Aircraft type number ordered Remarks Seats
( Business / Economy )
Airbus A310-300F 1 Cargo plane ; oldest machine in the fleet; former passenger aircraft;
Delivered new to Royal Jordanian in 1988; Rebuilt in 2003
Cargo
Airbus A319-100 5 110 (14/96)
Airbus A320-200 6th 136 (16/120)
Airbus A321-200 2 168 (20/148)
Boeing 787-8 7th 271 (24/247)
Embraer 175 2 72 (12/60)
Embraer 195 2 100 (12/88)
total 25th -

Previously deployed aircraft

In the past, ALIA and Royal Jordanian also operated the following types of aircraft:

Incidents

The Boeing 707 JY-ADO crashed in Kano in 1971 in 1971

At ALIA and Royal Jordanian there were seven total write-offs of aircraft between 1965 and November 2018. In four of them, a total of 463 people were killed. In 1973 and 1975 there were two accidents with Boeing 707 aircraft with 176 and 188 fatalities, which are still the two most serious accidents with this series to the present day. The 1973 accident was actually the worst aircraft accident in the world at the time, until it was surpassed in the following year with the crash of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 on Turkish Airlines flight 981 . Examples:

The Boeing 727 JY-ADU that crashed in Doha in 1979, Athens 1977
  • On June 5, 1967, the only two Douglas DC-7s operated by Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines (JY-ACP and JY-ACO) were attacked in connection with the shelling of West Jerusalem by Jordan during the Six Day War at Beirut Airport and Damascus Airport devastated. People were not harmed.

See also

literature

  • Frank Littek: Royal Jordanian: Levante Home Market. In: AERO International , No. 2/2019, pp. 16–20
  • BI Hengi: Airlines Worldwide , 9th updated edition from 2018, Nara, ISBN 978-3-925671-69-2 , p. 264

Web links

Commons : Royal Jordanian Airlines  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Stefan Pichler: Ex-Air Berlin boss becomes boss of Royal Jordanian Airlines - manager magazin . In: manager magazin . ( manager-magazin.de [accessed on September 13, 2017]).
  2. rj.com - Press release / RJ News: February 23, 2011 (English), accessed on July 18, 2011
  3. rj.com - RJ route network accessed on July 9, 2016
  4. ^ Etihad Airways and Royal Jordanian announce new codeshare partnership. Retrieved February 7, 2019 .
  5. ^ Royal Jordanian Fleet Details and History. Retrieved March 23, 2020 .
  6. Boeing - Orders & Deliveries , accessed on July 9, 2016
  7. rj.com - Our fleet accessed on July 9, 2016
  8. ^ Ulrich Klee, Frank Bucher et al .: jp airline-fleets international . Zurich Airport 1967–2007.
  9. Accident Statistics ALIA / Royal Jordanian Airlines , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 4, 2018.
  10. ^ Accident report HP Herald JY-ACQ , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on January 19, 2016.
  11. ^ Incident report DC-7 JY-ACP , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 26, 2020.
  12. ^ Incident report DC-7 JY-ACO , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 26, 2020.
  13. ^ Accident report B-707 JY-ADO , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 4, 2018.
  14. ^ Accident report B-707 JY-AEE , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 4, 2018.
  15. ^ Accident report B-727-200 JY-ADU , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on February 3, 2019.