Originally Posted by
GBYAJ
wow, thanks, that’s a comprehensive update!! I remember standing at the dinnington end of the runway on a Saturday with those JAT 727’s taking off - the noise was immense!
Spantax - you are right they didn’t make it into summer 88.
I saw the Ref to Spantax 767 - That caught my eye - Plus I loved the 1985 and 1988 'May-Fly's' BTW
Yes they did go under
just before the start of Summer 1988 leaving just 7000 pax stranded.
Plagued for years by financial troubles, an older inefficient fleet, poor safety record, & crew strikes, Spantax was sold to a finance group in Luxembourg in 1987.
The new owners committed an investment of up to 7 billion pesetas & Debts to the Spanish Govt. of 13 billion pesetas were reorganised over a twenty five-year period.
A fleet revamp and a new livery had already begun, with a fleet renewal program operating fifteen newer fuel efficient aircraft by 1993.
These attempts to revamp and refinance the airline, renew its fleet with McDonnell Douglas MD-83s, and negotiate with China Airlines for acquisition of Boeing 767s were all unsuccessful. A Kuwait Investment Co. withdrew from a planned offer to purchase the airline, thus Spantax ceased all operations on 29 March 1988.
Of all the original Spanish charter airlines such as TASSA, Air Spain, TAE, and Transeuropa, only Aviaco was left but they soon were to be fully integrated into parent Iberia.
Just the fledgling Air Europa, and soon to be Spanair would dominate, plus the many others who all would rise & then fall rather quickly.
Hispania bit the dust a year later in 1989.
Today only Air Europa is left, still flying, owned by IAG.
The BX 767's were never to be, sadly in Summer 1988.
Of the original BX fleet all of the dozen CV-990A's had already been stored at PMI to be scrapped.
3 DC-9 14's had been obtained from McDonnell Douglas from 1974, plus a pair of DC-9 32's, these by 1988 had now all been disposed of, although the 3 -14's did get the new Spantax livery.
A new type that was due to be introduced was the new DC-9 50 and SPANTAX ordered a pair of DC-9-50 aircraft
becoming the third airline to order this type of aircraft after SWISSAIR and AUSTRIAN, plus charter airline Inex Adria.
This order was later cancelled due to lack of finance, but another source says it is due to the inability of the aircraft to operate from the Canary Islands to Scandinavia non-stop, which was a key requirement for SPANTAX.
The original fleet of 3 DC8-61's had been returned. 2 of these hese aircraft were technically on the roster of American Airlines having acquired them when they took over Trans Caribbean Airlines, the other one was ex ONA, with GPA of Ireland now being the lessor.
They still had other leased DC-8 61's, plus leased 737-200 & DC-10's, including N1035F the fifth but NTU ship built for ONA.
Spantax had flown N1034F for a few years until its demise at AGP 9/1982 crashing after an RTO after V1.
Sister ship N1035F joined the BX fleet 2 weeks after the crash from Air Florida.
Spantax Boss, Captain Rodolfo Bay Wright gave serious consideration to operate the Concorde on routes from Northern Scandinavia to the Canaries, the Concorde could been flown supersonically, over water, almost all the way, passing over the top of Scotland, to the west of Ireland. The idea was to lease Concorde hours from one of the present operators, to have become the first company to offer supersonic IT packages, would indeed have been a major coup,
but the economics just didn't quite come out right. About 30 more seats in the Concorde was needed (over the 100) for the seat costs to look sensible stated Captain Bay in an interview.
In hindsight British Airways, who had already a booming charter business with it's Concordes, including Cunard QE2 JFK cruise charters, plus the high season scheduled leisure flights LHR to BGI Barbados could have reconfigured 1 or 2 charter/leisure aircraft dedicated with 130 seats and shared the flight hours with Spantax.
To save on empty legs BA Holidays Groups could have flown supersonic package holidays from LHR to the Canary Islands for the Brits - then a W pattern to/from Scandinavia then back to LHR. (HEL-LPA 2550 nm)
Although I am not sure if they could have reached BGI or JFK with 130 pax and bags non-stop? (JFK 3000 nm, BGI 3650 nm)
edit - the AF Concorde lost at CDG was overweight on Take Off with 100 cruise ship pax and bags...
Now we really have strayed into the unknown.............