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 ?

Thankyou.

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!

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.

Sounds a tad unlikely. Spantax used to fly charters from BOH with Coronados.

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.

I'm pretty sure that I saw one of these operating within the last 2 or 3 years somewhere in Europe.

Sorry yes, Spantax.

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...

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 ?

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.

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 :8

I was with Britannia at the time, and to the best of my knowledge there was no crew training input to Aviogenex

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.

Thankyou ken and rog.

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.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....dae850f2af.jpg

After

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3b5ea216b8.jpg

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.

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!) ?

737-200 Only

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.

I knew that YU-AKD was in Yugoslav government colours, but was used on Air Yugoslavia charters, and turned up at my local Newcastle pretty regularly. Didn't know about YU-AKH though?

I flew with them as a passenger in the early eighties to Dubrovnik and back and had a good experience. In the noughties I flew for a charter operator that had me there nearly every week for a while. Beautiful airport and fun flying unless the Bora wind was blowing, when things could get a bit exciting. For an airport near the sea it is surprisingly high up and looking out from the cabin the transition from seemingly being quite high over the sea to suddenly landing has taken a few cabin crew by surprise. Sadly I only overnighted there once, but it is somewhere I very much intend to revisit once this craziness is over.

It's curious that Aviogenex bought the 732 when their chums at JAT had already been operating the 733 for over a year. Perhaps the company was looking for spares commonality with the 727 or maybe Boeing offered a very good deal. Who knows ?

Not sure about the other Yugoslav Government Boeing 727 but here is a brief detail concerning YU-AKD.
​
Boeinging 727-2L8 YU-AKD was delivered to the Yugoslav Government in 1975 with a dual civil and governmental registration, the governmental registration being 14302.

The aircraft went to Aviogenex in 1983 as YU-AKD.

​​​​​​The aircraft was leased to the Danish company Sterling Airlines between 1986 and 1987 and re-registered as OY-SBJ. The aircraft returned to Aviogenex in April 1987 and assumed the registration of YU-AKD.

The aircraft seemed to have quite a varied career as it was leased to some other operator's before being eventually withdrawn from service. I also believe that it was the last passenger Boeing 727 operating in Europe. It was scrapped at Belgrade in 2006.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....51f2eb181b.jpg
Boeing 727-2L8 YU-AKD at London Heathrow Airport in July 1979.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f2b30f3258.jpg
Boeing 727 2L8 YU-AKD at Luton Airport 15 June 1981

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....37cf48ef0d.jpg

Boeing 727-2L8 YU-AKD on lease to Sterling Airlines as OY-SBJ, wearing the Aviogenex cheatline with Sterling Airlines titles and tail colour's. Seen at Salzburg Airport, Austria in January 1987.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f88f1522aa.jpg
Boeing 727-2L8 YU-AKD at London Gatwick Airport on the 16 June 1989.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....db745408d0.jpg
Boeing 727-2L8 YU-AKD at Manchester Airport on 05 October 1990. Not sure what airline it had previously been operating for when this photo was taken, it could well have been JAT but I stand to be corrected.

Beautiful looking aircraft and the Sterling pictures remind me of the thread we had around four years ago about Sterling's very interesting long haul operation of short haul aircraft. They were flying caravelles to India with multiple stops and of course across the Atlantic. I doubt there is anyone still around who can remember much of the technical detail. But I would be fascinated by some of the flight ops nitty gritty.

Icelandair. It did a full summer flying around in that scheme - I think that was probably the last summer of the Yugotours operation.

Perhaps you should search on pprune for the Sterling Airlines thread and restart it. If you can't find the relevant thread maybe start another one as it's an interesting topic to discuss.

I recently started the Stansted Airport History and Nostalgia thread and it's got to nearly 18 pages in less than a month and I've not long uploaded several photos of Sterling Airlines Boeing 727's, Caravelle's and DC8-63 taken at the airport. Although to be honest if your that is interested there are literally hundreds online to view.

I won't discuss Sterling Airlines any further on this thread as it's the Aviogenex Boeing 737-200 thread. Something that I try and avoid at all costs is "thread drift" as I personally find it extremely frustrating 😉

Although I never personally saw it flying for Icelandair but now that you have mentioned it the pale blue cheatline looks familiar.

The Yugoslav civil war started on the 31 March 1991 so your correct when you state that it was probably the last summer of the Yugotours operations although the company existed until 1995 before it eventually closed down.

Many thanks for pointing that out as that answers my question 😉

Good idea Sotonsean and by the way I love the photos and other information you have dug out. But to be honest my interest is more in the operational details, how they flight planned and navigated across the Atlantic and crewed the flights for example. After some really good contributions the last thread about Sterling dried up in December 2016, because there were really not that many people on here who could add much. Frankly despite this purportedly being a site for professional pilots I think real ones are in a decided minority. There are people like Denti and Wiggy etc. who obviously are pilots and who post great stuff. Don't get me wrong there are many fantastic non pilot contributors without which the site would be a lot less interesting. But people who were involved in operating for Sterling back then and can post authentically from the horse's mouth I don't think they are going to show up. Again I would love to be proved wrong. I agree with you about thread drift, so I will leave it at that.