Canafrica Transportes Aeros / Lineas Aereas Canarias

[Dan-Air London]

Hi PPruners,

Can any of you out there help me with www links to photographs of the following aircraft (I have tried all the usual sources, but to no avail....)

1) Canafrica DC8 (mid eighties vintage I think);
2) Lineas Aereas Canarias (LAC) MD-83.
3) Boeing 727 in AVIACO colours.

Both of the above were Spanish charter carriers. Canafrica (or CTA as it was sometimes known - not the Swiss CTA) were infamous for last minute cancellations and very lengthy delays on their flights. They mainly operated into Glasgow and Edinburgh from Palma. The company later became AirSur and operated only Md-83's prior to its demise around 1989.

LAC later merged with another carrier, Universair. The owners left the Spanish market in 1989-ish and ploughed equity into the then Alisarda of Italy to create the current Meridiana.

Finally, Aviaco DID operate B727's in their own colours for a while prior to the entire 727 fleet going to Iberia. This was late seventies / early eighties.

I am putting together a paper called "Charter Chatter" which is to be used in a forthcoming training workshop.

Also, any "brief" memories that you may have of charter operations in the UK during the eighties or any anecdotes would be most welcome, as would corrections to the above info.

thanks all!!

[Avman]

I have a slide I took of a Canafrica DC-8 beating up the runway at PMI on delivery. I may also have a slide of a LAC MD-83. I won't argue with you but I have to say that I never saw an Aviaco B727; and I spent quite a bit of time in Spain. But with all that vino I was drinking I might not have noticed;) .

[Palma de Mallorca]

My, my. We do have a good memory.

As someone who has lived near PMI for several years, I can confirm that AO DID operate Boeing 727's in their own colours. This was during 1980 to 1984 I think. I am sure that they were series 100's???

Since Palma is my base, I have some excellent shots from my private collection of almost everything that has touched down here since 1978!!

And by the way, you are right too about Canafrica. A real comedy outfit. Britannia resorted to having to use them in 1983 and 1985 (?) for additional capacity (before the days of Air Atlanta and Prime et al). BY were so slated by the public for the ludicrous service onboard the CTA DC8's that they resorted to sending their own cabin crews (along with the CTA crews) on some flights, so that BY did the service and sales, CTA only did the safety issues and occupied the jumpseats.

Need any more info - just e-mail me. By the way, Charter Chatter sounds like an excellent idea.

[oncemorealoft]

Canafrica worked for BY in the summer of 1986 principally out of GLA and, as stated previously, supported by BY cabin crew. There were some scary stories about the operation (which of course got exaggerated with each telling).

[Palma de Mallorca]

Hi there,

I would love to hear some of those stories. If there are any particular "highlights" that you could share, please do so.

Many thanks,

Paco

[Curious Pax]

I was working as a Dispatcher at Servisair Manchester in summer 86, and we used to get the CTA DC8 a couple of times a week. This was only a year or two after Britannia introduced the 767 and I think that for whatever reason (late aircraft delivery?) they were one short that summer, hence the DC8. There were several occurrences of passengers refusing to fly when they saw what was parked in place of the shiny new 767 they were accepting - hence I went clambering around the hold on a baggage hunt on a couple of occasions. I think they were EC-DYY and EC-DZA - there are pics of both on www.airliners.net.