Aloha was doing well but being only a small airline it struggled to compete with the major players who were busy sucking up jet production for years to come. To get around this it looked instead to the second-hand market were prop-jets could be acquired as the first line airlines replaced them with pure jets.
In 1963 Aloha introduced a trio of Vickers Viscounts. Two were ex-Austrian Airlines 745Ds and the other was an ex-Capital 798. The Viscounts seated 56 but the aircraft were not a success with either passengers or crew. The pilots complained that the Viscount 'flew like a truck' and was 'grossly underpowered'. These are interesting comments since I am unware of other Viscount operators sharing the opinion and it certainly had no effect on the type's success. The passengers were unhappy for more understandable reasons - the high capacity layout made the type cramped.
References
Wood, Bill. 1996. 50 Years of Aloha: The Story of Aloha Airlines Hill, Malcolm L. 1999. BAC One-Eleven. Crowood Aviation Series
3 Comments
20/12/2015 07:11:32 pm
Very informative and enjoyable as usual. Well done.
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BWI-ROCman
23/12/2015 04:11:01 pm
Interesting history. I didn't realize that the 737 nearly ruined Aloha. The demand for both carriers to operate 100-ish seat aircraft apparently didn't arise until around the 70's.
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23/12/2015 04:22:44 pm
I imagine the number of cycles per day for narrow bodies in Hawaii. Hawaiian B717's,up,down,up,down all day.
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AuthorI'm Richard Stretton: a fan of classic airliners and airlines who enjoys exploring their history through my collection of die-cast airliners. If you enjoy the site please donate whatever you can to help keep it running: Archives
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