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Aviogenex 737-200

Old 14th Apr 2020, 20:42
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Aviogenex 737-200

Aviogenex added some of the last-built (and a few used) 732s to their fleet in 1987. Does anybody know what involvement Britannia Airways had with these aircraft ? I know from photographs they used to go to Britannia at Luton for maintenance. I also remember the first time I heard one on the R/T departing Leeds Bradford, one of the pilots had a distinctly English (definitely not mid-European) accent. Did Britannia also train the Aviogenex pilots ?

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Old 15th Apr 2020, 09:05
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Were they bought or were they simply leased with crew from Britannia.
Wasn't it Aviogenex who used to run a schedule from Bournemouth to Madrid(?) using a CV990 Coronado.? Frightened me to death one lunchtime in about 1974; sitting reading my newspaper in the students' common room at the College of ATC when suddenly what seemed to be an 'explosion' of noise; the Coronado had departed from runway 19 in a strong southerly wind!
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 10:09
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They were definitely bought by Aviogenex. As far as I know, AGX never operated the CV990 so I think that's Spantax you're thinking of.
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 10:11
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Originally Posted by chevvron
Wasn't it Aviogenex who used to run a schedule from Bournemouth to Madrid(?) using a CV990 Coronado.?
Sounds a tad unlikely. Spantax used to fly charters from BOH with Coronados.
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 12:53
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Originally Posted by Mooncrest
Aviogenex added some of the last-built (and a few used) 732s to their fleet in 1987. Does anybody know what involvement Britannia Airways had with these aircraft ? I know from photographs they used to go to Britannia at Luton for maintenance. I also remember the first time I heard one on the R/T departing Leeds Bradford, one of the pilots had a distinctly English (definitely not mid-European) accent. Did Britannia also train the Aviogenex pilots ?

Thankyou.
I don’t remember there being any direct link between Aviogenex and Britannia. In fact Thomson Holidays used JAT and Adria but not Aviogenex.

However, BY could have done the maintenance but perhaps JAT would have been closer to home and had a v good reputation.

Theres still a Facebook page about Aviogenex and YU-ANP.

Given how Aviogenex and the Yugoslav market used to expand in the summer and virtually disappear in the winter I wonder if their pilots came from all
over the world?

one year they had extra 727’s which were in Braniff and Icelandair livery.

the following year in addition to brand new 737-200’s ANP and ANU they had ANX, ANY and ANZ which looked like right wrecks from the outside but a friend who flew on one said that it was quite smart inside.

Finally then just before the civil war they took a number of old Hapag Lloyd 737’s.




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Old 15th Apr 2020, 13:08
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Finally then just before the civil war they took a number of old Hapag Lloyd 737’s.
I'm pretty sure that I saw one of these operating within the last 2 or 3 years somewhere in Europe.
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 13:44
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Sorry yes, Spantax.
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 19:07
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At one time, Yugoslavia was the second biggest UK holiday destination after Spain. Spent a summer working at Servisair and we handled all three Yugoslavian airlines - couldn't work out why there was three of them and then why were so different - now we know...

Inex Adria used DC-9's/MD-80's and were very Germanic, JAT used 727's/DC-9's and were very east European (similar to Tarom/Balkan) and Aviogenex with their Tu-134's were very Latin. Quite often the hosties would stuff the Gen Dec into your hand as soon as the doors opened and then strode into the terminal to clear WHSmiths out of fashion magazines and chocolate. Again, not unusual for the a/c to be left in the charge of an "engineer" and for the crew (cockpit and cabin!) to be the last to board before departure i.e. after the pax...
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 21:02
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So, we as yet don't know if there was any Aviogenex/Britannia tie-up beyond 732 maintenance at Luton. Maybe the Englishman I heard back in 1987 was just a jobbing freelancer.

As an aside, was the Aviogenex 727 maintenance also entrusted to Britannia (I know the latter didn't operate them) or did JAT do the business in Belgrade ?
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Old 15th Apr 2020, 22:56
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Quite often the hosties would stuff the Gen Dec into your hand as soon as the doors opened and then strode into the terminal to clear WHSmiths out of fashion magazines and chocolate.
Aah yes - the old Saturday evening race across the apron between the crews of the Aviogenex 737, Adria DC9 and Balkan TU154 on adjacent stands to see who could get to WHSmith first. Border Force would put a stop to that nowadays!!

It was all rather less frenetic when UK crews appeared down route. If I recall correctly, the mobile "crew shop" was still visiting aircraft in Mahon well into the 2000s - Mahon was the last place I remember seeing one. Come to think of it, Reus was the last place I flew where they still had photographers taking pics of the passengers as they disembarked and that must have been about 2005.


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Old 16th Apr 2020, 00:12
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Originally Posted by SWBKCB

Inex Adria used DC-9's/MD-80's and were very Germanic, JAT used 727's/DC-9's and were very east European (similar to Tarom/Balkan) and Aviogenex with their Tu-134's were very Latin.
Inex Adria were based in Slovenia in the foothills of the Alps, and I'm sure we're most of us aware evolved into the state airline of the independent Slovenia. Even then the Slovenes regarded themselves as a bit more 'civilised' than their more 'Mediterranean' or 'Ottoman' pals further south; in fact the disintegration of Yugoslavia started in Slovenia. JAT and Aviogenex were both based in Belgrade but whereas JAT was purely state-owned, Aviogenex was owned by a state-owned but autonomous company, Generalexport. The Yugoslavian brand of socialism was a lot less centralised than that in the Warsaw Pact countries. The fact that Yugoslavia and Albania liberated themselves from the Nazis, rather than being 'liberated' by the Red Army, meant that they were not 'in hock' to Moscow, unlike the GDR, Bulgaria etc. Sorry for thread drift, but I'm interested in all this stuff
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Old 16th Apr 2020, 09:36
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So, we as yet don't know if there was any Aviogenex/Britannia tie-up beyond 732 maintenance at Luton. Maybe the Englishman I heard back in 1987 was just a jobbing freelancer.

As an aside, was the Aviogenex 727 maintenance also entrusted to Britannia (I know the latter didn't operate them) or did JAT do the business in Belgrade ?
I was with Britannia at the time, and to the best of my knowledge there was no crew training input to Aviogenex
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Old 16th Apr 2020, 10:14
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Aviognex did eventually have a MX base at BEG that could handle Boeings and PW engines. It's not long been knocked down and I saw photos of a couple of old JT8's laying around.
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Old 16th Apr 2020, 10:20
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Thankyou ken and rog.
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Old 18th Apr 2020, 00:11
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The last remaining Aviogenex aircraft was Boeing 737 2K3A YU-ANP.

It was flying for JAT up until a few year's ago before the airline rebranded into Air Serbia. It's been in storage at Belgrade for the last three years and probably will never fly again. It never wore the full Aviogenex livery towards the end of it's life, it was painted in a basic white livery with Aviogenex titles.

Before, YU-ANP at Manston Airport.



After




Last edited by Sotonsean; 18th Apr 2020 at 00:29.
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Old 18th Apr 2020, 09:40
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The above photo, white/small titles, was the very aircraft that I saw somewhere in Europe a few times in the last years. It was hush-kitted in some way if I remember correctly. Funny how it was a rare bird at the end, whereas before for decades you wouldn't have given it a second glance.
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Old 19th Apr 2020, 18:12
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Engineering support was at Luton for A-checks and casualty aircraft. During the summer of 1988, I was sent down to Yugoslavia several times for AOGs Etc. Visited their bases in Pula, Split, Zagreb and Belgrade. Great time staying on the beach in Split and staying in a Russian era Hotel in Belgrade. The "Room" was a series of large rooms with a grand staircase and two floors! This was all offset by fault-finding a fuel indication problem in a wing tank on the ramp in Pula in July in 30 degrees. HOT!
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Old 19th Apr 2020, 19:15
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Originally Posted by mpenage
Engineering support was at Luton for A-checks and casualty aircraft. During the summer of 1988, I was sent down to Yugoslavia several times for AOGs Etc. Visited their bases in Pula, Split, Zagreb and Belgrade. Great time staying on the beach in Split and staying in a Russian era Hotel in Belgrade. The "Room" was a series of large rooms with a grand staircase and two floors! This was all offset by fault-finding a fuel indication problem in a wing tank on the ramp in Pula in July in 30 degrees. HOT!
Was Engineering support only for the 732 or did you look after the 727s as well (I don't imagine you went anywhere near the Tupolevs!) ?
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Old 19th Apr 2020, 21:49
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737-200 Only
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Old 20th Apr 2020, 10:12
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As I mentioned on another thread, Aviogenex picked up two 727s which were state aircraft used by Tito. They flew in parallel with him deciding at the last minute which one he was going to fly on to reduce the risk of getting shot down. Given what happened in the country after he died, maybe this was not quite as crazy as it now sounds. In any case JAT the national airline also operated 727s, so I suspect there was ample engineering support in county. All those years ago Yugoslavia as it then was with Tito treading a line between east and west was a curious, but relatively stable place. Yugotours developed a strong business flying several hundred thousand people mainly to the Dalmatian coast, which was actually a cradle of modern tourism. The Grand hotel on the island of Lopud near Dubrovnik built in the thirties, with architectural cues that remind you of an ocean liner, was one of the first seaside tourist hotels paving the way for the many thousands more that have sprung up all round the world subsequently.
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