Originally Posted by
Quietplease
Never saw UTA Caravelles in SYD. We did SYD- NOU in the 707, only about 2.20 flight time so always somewhere within an hour.
In 1970 for example it did once a week on Sundays Noumea-Sydney and return. On the Saturday it had done Auckland.
Page 5 here :
ut70.pdf (timetableimages.com)
Originally Posted by
SpringHeeledJack
I hadn't realised that UTA used their Caravelle on such long routes, 2 engines to infinity and beyond! Were these 2 examples the ones that went to Air Afrique by chance ? UTA was a decent enough airline,
Air Afrique bought separately a couple of late-model Caravelles as well, might have even been part of the same order, the two companies were notably intertwined and quite a proportion of the Air Afrique ops and flight deck staff were UTA personnel on secondment, along with loaning of substitute aircraft. Air Afrique heavy maintenance was all done in Paris. There was interlocking minority ownership by UTA (and Air France) in Air Afrique, the same as both had part ownership of French internal airline Air Inter as well. It was very much an "old boys" closed shop, French style, said to be co-ordinated behind the scenes by the longstanding No 1 customer of UTA, the French Foreign Affairs ministry's ex-Colonial department at Quai d'Orsay in Paris.