Originally Posted by
paulc
Managed to fly on one of the Laker A300 (G-BIMC) in late 1981 to Palma and was allowed to stay on the flight deck for the landing. Return was on a DC10. First transatlantic trip in 1989 was on a Wardair A310.to Montreal. I do remember seeing a 747sp of Luxair at Palma once.
Luxair's 747SP LX-LGX was a good spot at Palma - I also saw it once at Athens.
Here it is at Palma in summer 1989, with a Kar Air A300 parked behind.
There is quite a story linking both airlines here -
KAR-AIR Oy had 2 new A300's via an inherited order from parent Finnair Aircraft Finance.
One was originally built and painted for
Luxair as
LX-LGZ but was NTU when due for delivery 12/1984, so the new aircraft
was then stored at Toulouse.
However Luxair then received just 10 days later, an A300
LX-LGP, ex SIA 9V-STH.
Luxair would fly this A300 on both scheduled routes and holiday charters, seen at Heathrow, Palma and Athens, and also flew the Trek/Luxair JNB flights from 1984.
LX-LGP would then be sold in 12/1987 to SAA as ZS-SDI Steenbok, now actually intended for
Trek Airways who had leased an SAA 747SP also in association with Luxair.
The stored A300
LX-LGZ finally went to Finnair as OH-LAA in 12/1986 (along with sister OH-LAB) but both were used by
Kar Air until 1990 then back to Finnair Charter, then both were delivered to Air Scandic 04/1998 and -LAA (now G-TTMC) was sub-leased to Caledonian for the summer seasons '98 & '99.
Sister A300 -LAB became G-SWJW.
Trek Airways had operated former SAA 707's sold to Luxair to operate the JNB - LUX route.
SAA used to be nicknamed "Slow Around Africa" because it was not allowed to fly over Africa during the Apartheid era.
Luxavia (not Luxair)
which was reportedly 90% owned by SAA (is this true?) offered cheap flights to Europe and flying quicker up over Africa.
Trek came to an arrangement with
Luxair to market Luxavia that actually sold the flights (using LG flight numbers)
Luxavia was a holiday charter company selling tickets from it's offices in London, Holland, Germany, Luxembourg and South Africa. This was a joint venture between Trek Airways Pty (South Africa) and Luxair (Luxembourg) enabling Trek Airways to avoid the repercussions of increasing and widespread anti-Apartheid boycotts.
Luxair's own timetables actually showed the weekly LUX-JNB route
as their own service, with interline connections bookable on Luxair's scheduled flights, and Luxair Tours offering South African holidays in its brochure.
The 707A's would usually stop to refuel at Luanda and Rome, or Libreville and Nice, but later on the 707B flights could fly just via NBO.
The 707C could not make NBO-LUX non-stop so it had to refuel again at Cairo or Athens.
Round trip fares in 1971 LUX-JNB were cheap, at around £180-£240, plus £10 for Luxair's return add-on fare for passengers wishing to join at LHR.
Flights would increase to 2 - 3 times a week in later years.
Then the big plan in 1980 was for Luxavia to lease a 747SP Jumbo from South African Airways and operate it between Luxembourg and South Africa as Luxair, again avoiding the apartheid sanctions and enabling a direct route across Africa.
One of the SAA 747SP's ZS-SPF was painted in Luxair colours in early October 1980 but this 747SP was not handed over to Luxair.
Another 747SP, ZS-SPA was soon re-painted and given a new registration: LX-LTM.
The registration -LTM was chosen after the Trek Airways Founder and Captain “Tom Meredith”
The plans were quickly stopped as the Media made a big fuss about how South African Airways tried to avoid apartheid sanctions by flying as Luxair.
This story also making big news in the British Sunday Times.
The aircraft was rolled back into the hangar, the Luxair titles were removed and the original registration ZS-SPA put back on for SAA.
From Christmas 1984 and Luxair's new A300 would now fly the LUX-JNB route. I do not know where the A300 fuel stopped.
On November 1st in 1987 Luxair leased another 747SP from South African Airways, ZS-SPB was re-painted and re-registered as LX-LGX, and it flew for Luxair/Trek/Luxavia until 1991.
Trek Airways Ltd. (Pty) and Luxavia SA were to have
yet another go in 1993, and leased an SAA 747SP-44 for it's South African Tours and brought back the old Trek name,
but this was to last for less than a year.
The 747SP ZS-SPB was this time painted in the striking blue original
Trek Airways colours, and had additional "Luxavia Star" titles on the forward fuselage.
In cooperation with Luxair (Societe Luxembourgeoise de Navigation Aerienne, S. A.) the international route to Europe once flown by Trek Airways Ltd. (Pty) is reopened.
Services continue apace but in early 1994 the holding company, Trek Airways, withdraws from the market after the flag carrier provides a multimillion rand payment.
Shareholders shut down Luxavia, S. A. on April 20, thereby bringing South Africa’s experiment with deregulation perilously close to failure.
Back in 1968 Trek had ordered it's own brand new 707-350C from Boeing.
However, it was swapped on the production line to South African Airways as a Boeing 707-344C ZS-SAG "Durban"
This aircraft originally ordered as a -350C by Trek Airways (to be ZS-FKT) was ceded to SAA for delivery 04/1969 after the crash of its 707-344C ZS-EUW ''Pretoria''
at WDH in April 1968. Trek instead received SAA's previous "Durban" an older 707-344A ZS-SAC (ex ZS-CKE) in part exchange 06/1969.
Fully painted for Trek it was soon repainted in Luxair's colours and registered LX-LGW.
''Pretoria'' (2) for South African Airways was 707-344C ZS-FKG Del 08/1969 to become ZS-SAH.
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c D Grew.
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LX-LGX at Palma summer 1989
I would love to get hold of the book about Trek Airways
written by Founder Tom Meredith titled Sky Trek - anyone here got one please ?
Sky Trek
Pioneering days of low-fare leisurely air travel between South Africa and Europe.
Author: Tom Meredith
ISBN 0-620-19356-5
9780620193566
Published 1995