Category: Boeing 737

Hainan Specials Pt1: Floral 300s

8/12/2018

Hainan Airlines is nowadays a well known and respected airline. Its beginnings were much less grand but by 2000 it had innovated its way to success achieving a number of firsts for Chinese airlines. For Westerners however it was probably the advent of China’s first special schemes that raised its profile the most.

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Hainan Airlines: The Beginning of a Dynasty

30/11/2018

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The HNA Group has grown to become a behemoth of an organisation owning stakes in such diverse organisations as The Hilton Hotel chain, Deutsche Bank, Swissport and airport caterer Gategroup as well as a collection of airlines both within and outside of China. The start of it all however was Hainan Airlines, which grew from nothing rather mysteriously during the 1990s. Innovation played a major role but other factors were also key.

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Aviacsa Pt2: Pakal Falls

5/9/2018

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Aviacsa entered into the 21st Century as Mexico’s leading private airline and a serious competitive force to the nationalised Mexicana and Aeroméxico. Unfortunately it was not able to establish itself as a permanent fixture due to its inability to finance fleet replacement and compete as a low cost rather than a low fares airline with the new breed of LCCs in Mexico such as Interjet and Volaris. Within 10 years Pakal would be dethroned.

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City Jets: Lufthansa’s 737 Launch

20/4/2018

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Boeing focused its initial jet offerings on the long and then medium range sections of the market leaving fertile ground for competitors to produce jets for the short hauls. In fact Boeing was so late to the market that it couldn't find a launch customer out of the traditional US trunk airlines and instead surprised everyone by looking towards Europe. Lufthansa and the 737 would prove a match made in heaven.

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East Meets West: Malev’s First 737s

13/2/2018

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Nowadays the end of Cold War seems obvious and the thought that the Soviet Union could have persisted bizarre; however in the 1980s this was far from the case. Aside from Tarom the airlines of the Warsaw Pact appeared staunchly pro-Soviet so the pivot to the West by Malev, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, was an important harbinger of things to come.

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Giraffe Survivor: Air Tanzania Corporation

2/8/2017

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Too often the history of African national airlines reads like a black comedy of dodgy dealings, rampant cronyism and flagrant corruption. Accordingly very few of the many national carriers have survived. One that has, against the odds, is Air Tanzania, however the airline has certainly had some serious ups and downs and is a very different beast nowadays to when it started.

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Whistling Dixie: Air South

29/6/2017

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The sea of red-ink that flowed out of the US airline industry during the 1980s, thanks to fare wars and failed startups, coupled with the global economic downturn initiated by the first Gulf War would you'd have thought been enough to discourage all but madmen from starting a new airline in the USA by the early 90s. It seems however that some are not so easily dissuaded and so Air South was born as one of several new challengers to the US majors.

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Future Echoes: Lufthansa Express

20/6/2017

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It's not just since the 2000s that the big European carriers have been taking a hard look at how to make money on short haul routes. As far back as the early 1990s Lufthansa was struggling and it was one of the first airline's to attempt the now largely discredited airline within an airline operation, which in the US alone has seen the likes of Delta Express, Song, Metrojet and TED appear and vanish. Lufthansa didn't go the whole hog but did create its Lufthansa Express concept as a first step.

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Air Crane LCC: Jiangxi Air

24/3/2017

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The low cost revolution is slowly coming to China now that the government and CAAC see the benefits that LCCs can bring to enable growth in underdeveloped regions. Accordingly most of the big four airline groups in China (China Eastern, China Southern and Hainan Airlines, but not Air China) have been working to transition existing airlines to the LCC model or create new budget carriers. One of the latest additions is within the China Southern stable, albeit through their nominally independent subsidiary Xiamen Airlines.

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Proud Wings Pt2: Vintage 737s

15/3/2017

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The multiple mergers that created Canadian Airlines International in 1987 created an impressively homogenous fleet, unlike that which Continental Airlines accumulated during the same period through its own multi-merger. Nonetheless that fleet was largely built around older technology aircraft, which although reliable were increasingly uncompetitive into the 1990s. Unfortunately given Canadian's weak financial status replacing these older aircraft would never be achieved.

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Shandong Success: Xinxing 737-300s

8/3/2017

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During the early to mid-1990s China's first nominally independent (though not private) airlines began to come into existence. The equipment of choice for the majority of these airlines was Boeing's 737-300, rather than McDonnell Douglas' anointed Chinese trunkliner version of the MD-80. Shandong Airlines was one of these small airlines and has weaved its way through associations with the big three to survive and become one of China's largest airlines.

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American Out West: AirCal and the San Jose Hub

23/2/2017

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Given the 1980s merger frenzy and increasing power of the richer trunk airlines it is questionable whether AirCal could have survived on its own, but was American Airlines a good fit? History would show that it clearly was not and AA's plans for California would not succeed. Nonetheless the owners of AirCal exited the scene with a decent pay off and American's plans certainly made more sense than USAir's contemparaneous plans for PSA. Here's the story of American's Californian punt.

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AirCal's Search for Silence: MD-80s to 737s to 146s

21/2/2017

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By 1984 AirCal had consolidated its position despite intrusion from new airlines in its core markets. The fleet consisted of 2 737-100s, 14 737-200s and 7 MD-80s and was connecting 13 cities with over 200 flights a day. It was time for fleet renewal, however this would still be incomplete when the airline was consumed in the later rounds of the 1980s merger mania that plagued the US deregulated era.

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TAESA Pt1: The Little Airline That Could

7/2/2017

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TAESA (Transportes Aéreos Ejecutivos) Lineas Aéreas was begun in April 1988 operating executive jets and began scheduled passenger operations in 1989. It was the brainchild of the then 36 year old pilot Alberto Abed and the powerful Mexican industrialist Carlos Hank Rhon as a vehicle to create a competitor to the duopoly of Mexicana and Aeromexico in the newly deregulated Mexican market. It grew quickly but the 90s would prove a rocky time for airlines in Mexico.

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Godwits to Korus: 737-200s in New Zealand

30/12/2016

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The Boeing 737 has had a long and fruitful service in New Zealand especially in the guise of the series 200, which New Zealand became a very early home for. Operations stretched from the late 1960s into the early 2000s; first with National Airways Corporation and subsequently with Air New Zealand. The Fat Albert was the first pure jet on the NZ domestic scene and whether wearing a Godwit or the Koru proved its value to generations of kiwis.

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Forward>>

Hainan Specials Pt1: Floral 300s

Hainan Airlines: The Beginning of a Dynasty

Aviacsa Pt2: Pakal Falls

City Jets: Lufthansa’s 737 Launch

East Meets West: Malev’s First 737s

Giraffe Survivor: Air Tanzania Corporation

Whistling Dixie: Air South

Future Echoes: Lufthansa Express

Air Crane LCC: Jiangxi Air

Proud Wings Pt2: Vintage 737s

Shandong Success: Xinxing 737-300s

American Out West: AirCal and the San Jose Hub

AirCal's Search for Silence: MD-80s to 737s to 146s

TAESA Pt1: The Little Airline That Could

Godwits to Korus: 737-200s in New Zealand

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