Aquila Airways
My parents flew on a Solent of Aquila from Lisbon to Funchal, Madeira, in November 1954, on their honeymoon. They were supposed to fly from Southampton to Funchal, I think via Lisbon, on an Aquila Solent, but because of prolonged bad weather in Lisbon, the Solent was unable to get back to Soton to pick them and the other passengers up, so they had to hang around in Soton for several days, Aquila eventually flew them out to Lisbon on a DC3, which was the first flight either of them had taken. The seats were "bolt upright," to quote my mother and they touched down to refuel somewhere in France (Bordeaux?), all the passengers having to get off the aircraft in freezing cold.
When they got to Lisbon, the Solent was at last able to fly them out to Funchal and my mother got very seasick in the landing boat. I've got a photo of the Solent taken by my late father and when I can find it, I'll scan it in, upload it to Flickr, then post a link to it here. Anyone else with memories of Aquila?
Also, quite a few years ago, Propliner published an article about Aquila, which said that, after Aquila's demise in 1958, their surviving Solents were flown out to Lisbon "in a vain hope/effort of/at resuming operations." That never came to pass and I was astonished to read that the three(?) Solents survived in a boat yard in Lisbon till as late as 1971, when they were finally scrapped. Shame.