early 727 charter ops
Someone here said the The 727 wasn't really very suitable for European operations - whereas the 737 was perfect.
Well the 727 came first in the mid 1960's and both the Germans (Condor) and the Swedes (Transair Sweden) loved them for their comfort 131 pax, and the long legs to have the range to fly to the Canary Islands non-stop, also Icelandic used their 727's too.
Dan Air in 1973 got some 727-100's (3 at first, then soon 5 then 8) and added some extra aft doors and put in 146 pax (5 of the 727 had this mod)
This was the start of their Comet replacement on Dan's longer routes, basing the 727 at LGW, MAN, and also at Berlin TXL for the German IT market.
Re long legs - Into LGW from 1966 onwards saw the new 727 of Wardair crossing the pond followed by World AW, AFA and TIA all on Affinity Group charters.
Wardair fuelled up in Greenland or Iceland, sometimes SNN and I gather the odd non-stop made it to PIK>?
Wardair's 727 had 117 seats. I flew on it Summer 1972 from Dubrovnik to LGW operating a Sub charter for a BCAL 1-11 500.
Sterling AW in the late 1970's ordered the latest 189 seat 727-200ADV HGW with -17 engines (The heaviest 727's ever built) and added extra fuel tanks aft where Boeing then added an extra (3rd) hold door for the rear bags to go in.
Sterling used them non-stop to the Canary Islands of course, and to the USA and Canada, plus down to Mombasa, the Maldives, Ceylon and Thailand.
Sterling were also the first 727 airline to opt for the Valsan Super Silent 727 RE package and had 2 aircraft modified.
Dan Air standardised their charter fleet with the 727-200, their 189 seat aircraft used as far as TLV and Eilat/Ovda.
Dan Air never normally used the 727 for their scheduled routes.
Of course in the 1970's many UK and German airlines were flying the BAC 1-11 300/400 and 500, but were not finding it suitable for longer holiday routes like Greece and the Canary Islands, and this is where the 737-200, especially when the ADV versions came along and the 737 won hands down, leading to new start up airlines like Air Europe and Orion buying brand new fleets.
Although even back then Paninternational of Germany flew their 1-11 500's to Mombasa.
Other airlines were flying a bunch of older jets like the 707/720 DC-8 and CV990, cheap to buy, plenty of seats, but soon to their cost found them too expensive to run causing many Charter airlines to fold.
Last edited by rog747; 27th May 2021 at 13:37.