Britannia to MOS/LED
 

Jan 1983, I flew LGW/MOS and LED/LGW. with a BY B737 G-AVR? as part
of a Thomson tour to MOS/Murmansk/LED, including Aeroflot flts MOS/MMK
MMK/LED . The 16 of us had two nights in MMK, with a visit to the Fisherman's
Mission, The BY Flight had a Cpt. LED/LGW had a Polish name, possibly had
a knowledge of Russian. Does anyone know, for how long these Soviet flights
Operated, and were the flight crews specially chosen.? I had a an American
friend pick me up from LGW, and was told by him."The flight did not exist on
the LGW arrival board.
Thanks,
Lance Shippey

I'm pretty sure your Britannia 737 Captain in that era with a Polish name will have been Andrzej Jeziorski (apologies if I've not quite got that right).

I can't tell you a lot more about the flights but am sure someone else will be able to help to piece this together.

Dear Albert Hall.
Thanks so much., I remember the doors being closed at LED, and he saying
"We have had no problems on the inbound flight, or ground." After being
airborne for around 30 minutes, he announced "We are now leaving Soviet
airspace, welcome home gentlemen"
This was one of the most reassuring messages I ever heard.
Another memorable message was departing ZRH/LHR with an Australian
BA cpt. who opened with " Ladies and Gentlemen, If I put this aircraft down
on water, it's a little late to think how to put the lifebelt on, so it would be
good to listen to the safety briefing."

Lance Shippey

The BY 737 was probably G-AVRN or RO. RL and RM were also in the fleet, but had lower MGW and probably would not be used on sectors as long as those you mention. The flights ran for several years; I did one as an F/O in 1980, and they had been running for a few years before that.

Crews were not exactly specially chosen; my recollection is that Captains needed to do a clearance flight with a trainer before operating in command. There were some ex military pilots who were excluded because they were prohibited by MoD from entering Soviet territory.

Albert has the right name for your Captain.

How would the MoD have any say on ex-service personnel working wherever they chose (or perhaps could in less choosy times) ?

I can appreciate freshly-ex personnel being a possible risk ifthey had been illegally detained, but most wouldn't have had up to date intel to give up surely ?

Dear SpringHealledJack
It is most likely that the MoD were not thinking of what intell the flight crew could
give up, if they had been illegally detained, but the implications caused to some
of the passengers on the Soviet Flights. Perhaps some of the pax were affiliated
to the MoD. This was the time of the Soviet SS20.

Lance Shippey

Thomson Holidays had been doing short breaks and Tours to Soviet Russia and had chartered Aeroflot to fly for them from LGW to Moscow and Leningrad. TU and IL types.
They were very popular and were seen as an exotic getaway.
Finally Britannia Airways (with B737) was granted permission to fly the first ever UK charter flights for package tourists to Russia.
The local ground handling was very 'stern' and strict as one can imagine at those times.

Soviet owned Intourist Holidays also provided packages from London and other UK airports using Aeroflot charters.

Looking through my records, I flew LGW-LED-LTN in Sept 1987 on G-BJCU & G-BAZG. It was a "Pearls of the Black Sea" two week Thomson tour routing Lenningrad-Moscow (Tu-134) Moscow-Oddessa (TU-154) Oddessa-Simferopol (AN-24) Simferopol-Sochi (TU-134) & Sochi-Lenningrad (IL-86) A very interesting trip and pretty good value as the Russian's wanted the hard currency! (most of the hotel food was pretty rough though!)
The return flight from Lenningrad to the UK was memorable as we had a massive headwind and had to divert to LTN due to issues with Gatwick night slots (as it was fairly late in the season) I didn't complain as it was a couple of miles to get home!

Thomson/Britannia also did some flights in this era further east into Siberia in deep winter, for "the cold". Minus 40 pretty much guaranteed. Bratsk was one such place.

I don't know whether they made a stop en route at say Moscow, and boarded a Soviet translator. the real issue with flights further into the Soviet Union at that time was not so much xenophobia, more a lack of ATC who were fluent in English. They were so staffed on one or two routes into Moscow, and into Leningrad from by the Finnish border, other than that it was an issue. Still nowadays ground control at Russian airports is Russian only, and Follow Me cars are used to lead visiting aircraft.

I left the RAF in 1972 and joined IAS Cargo Airlines as a Britannia 312 captain. In January 1973 I flew a Britannia, using a LOT callsign from Cairo to Warsaw with 17.5 tons of tomatoes on board. Only the F/O was non RAF. After a very difficult arrival due to the heavy snowfall we had a lively night in Warsaw airport hotel. I remember we were not allowed to divert to Berlin If the GCA had been unsuccessful. The return to Gatwick was North and then West via Denmark.

Hi Brakewell.
Thanks for the interesting news. I think some LOT pax flts were able to use the
3 Western corridors along with British , French, and U.S. registered a/c. ? Was
the Britannia British registered ? IAS brings back fond memories. I knew
Andrew Niemeyer, Norman, and the very lovely Janet, who ran the Sydney
office, in North Sydney. I remember the DC8 flew frozen Lamb from PER to
SJH. The licence for the Australian flights was LGW/via/via/PER, but if the
a/c had a tech problem. (Especially if carrying a heavy load for SYD) would
divert to SYD due tech. I spent some time on the flight deck of one of the
DC8's whilst at SYD. From the tie with KK, to form BCA, things appeared to
go down the drain. I think Alan Stocks was Resurrected with with the DC8's
to serve Africa under a new venture.

Lance Shippey

The LOT corridor flights were a special concession, one of the few to the original agreement, and only applied to those LOT flights that stopped in East Berlin at Schonefeld. There were commonly only a few per week, but they did form a service, the only one in fact, from the GDR to Western Europe, London, Paris, Brussels, but not West Germany. Interflug, the GDR airline, was not allowed to fly in this direction, as the GDR was not recognised in the West, for the same reason Lufthansa (nor other Western aircraft, hence the origin of this note) could not fly east across the GDR. Flights from Warsaw direct to Western Europe, which was most of them, like all these others, had to route north over the Baltic so as not to cross the GDR/West German border. Nonstop flights from Warsaw would not want to use the corridor anyway, even if allowed and direct, because it was restricted to 10.000 feet and (250 ?) knots, just as the DC3/DC4 required when it was introduced and was never changed, so they would have had to come down to that.

The corridors were administered entirely by the four Allied powers (there was a special committee), neither the GDR nor West Germany had any direct say in their operation. Other than these LOT flights, allowed by all four parties, only aircraft from Allied countries, flown by Allied pilots, were allowed - thus a BA Australian national pilot could not fly on them. Apart from the LOT flights, another concession was a daily return service a BA One-Eleven ran for many years just for the about 10 days of the Leipzig Trade Fair (September I think), Heathrow to Leipzig, which crossed the GDR border from overhead Berlin. Both GDR and the Soviet Union wanted this principal east-west trade fair, the western allies likewise, and BA found it commercially worthwhile. Heathrow to the corridor as normal, along the corridor at 10,000ft, hand over to GDR control over Berlin, on to Leipzig in SE GDR.

The only way that British-registered Britannia could have got from Warsaw to Berlin, if they really wanted to, would be up over the Baltic, down over West Germany, descend to the corridor, and into one of the West Berlin airports. They would not have been allowed into Schonefeld at all, it's not actually in Berlin but just across the (unmarked) border in mainstream GDR.

The Britannia reg was GAOVS. My dates were wrong, the Cairo/Warsaw flight was on 23/01/1976, WAR/Manston on the 24th Jan. I remember the chilled lamb flights from Perth to several Middle East airports very well when we used to route via Singapore and Colombo.

Hi. WHBM. Thanks> This answered a lot of my questions. One final question I have.
The Soviet stance on East Germany's Western State visits changed when Mikhail
Gorbachev came to power. He approved a visit to Bonn 07/08 June 1987. There
were State visit by Honecker to the N.L. in June 1987, and Belgium in October 1987.
For these visits, a special IL62 Personal aircraft was used in Interflug (IF) colours.
His Butler would accompany him, armed, and wearing at Interflug uniform. Do you
know if these special flights would have been given "Special authority" by the Soviets
to use to Western corridors ? or would have to fly around them ? also are you aware
of "Special callsigns" used {Similar to Airforce One) when carrying Honecker ?

Thanks brakedwell, I remember G-AOVS, when in British Eagle colours.
Parts of the remains of the airframe are at LTN. I remember my only flt.
as pax on a Britannia was a special charter LTN/LBG/LTN to visit the
Paris Air Salon. A truly beautiful a/c.

Lance

Had it not just been taken off the board 'cause it had already arrived? :)
I'm never quite sure how to take some of the stories that circulated about Eastern Bloc flights. When Balkan started flights from Newcastle to Bulgaria in the 80's, one of the gems that went around was that when you got off your Balkan Tu154 at Varna or Bourgas there was a soldier at the bottom of the stairs aiming a gun at all the passengers as they emerged from the aircraft door. Not sure why a country desperate for foreign currency would welcome tourists in such a way, or why Gatwick Airport would deny the existence of a flight from Leningrad. (The Balkan and TAROM flights to Newcastle definitely appeared on the arrivals board - I remember my dad checking in our CAM to see what the prefix 'LZ' was!)
Apols for thread drift :)

we must have been on the Newcastle roof at about the same time because the story that I heard had developed from this a bit and the armed soldiers were on the planes when they arrived at Newcastle!! the sevisair ground crew were told (politely) by the cabin crew to stay away for their own safety......

While this part may have been an urban legend there was no doubt that the Balkan cabin crew hit the “shops” at the airport each weekend. they used to go back to the tu154 loaded with as much as they could buy from John Menzies (the newsagent).

Myself likewise. Having taken a number of them, they all seemed pretty straightforward. Accounts of cabin crews have them as extremes, either ugly blocks or gorgeous blondes. In actual fact the Soviet bloc had about the same proportions of these as western carriers, or society in general. Meanwhile Tupolevs handle perfectly, leave on time, the cabin fit is fully up to standard, and compared to Western in-flight catering nowadays they have a thing or two to show.

I can however tell of my first ever arrival there. Anticipating the immigration desks to be staffed by KGB scowlers, it was a surprise that the whole lot were 20-something ladies, chatting away to each other, makeup applied, only let down by their longstanding Russian uniform oversize hats. On to customs, where there were raised voices at the inspection table. A suitcase was opened, and a Russian mama was giving the, again 20-something uniformed officer, and possibly the age of her son, absolutely what-for at full volume. He was back against the wall, almost cowering, facial expression of not knowing what to do, as this onslaught developed, goodness knows what over but she definitely had the upper hand. All the other Russians walked past without a care. Welcome to their world !

We could well have been!
Says something about the standard of retail facilities in Eastern Bloc that a trip to John Menzies was a highlight of their summer :)

There's something about the ex-Warsaw Pact countries that still inspires some people to talk rubbish even now that the Iron Curtain is a memory. From someone who went to Poland in about 2005 and related that they 'weren't allowed to leave the town they were staying in', through to someone who went to a football match in Tirana and 'everyone was walking around with AK47's'. Not just at the match apparently, in the streets of Tirana generally. This was in either 2012 and 2014. I remember because cause I'd been there on holiday a few months earlier and of course had seen no such thing. (Albania was only briefly in the Warsaw Pact but it was resolutely Communist until about 1990.) Some of those places are indeed a bit different from what we're used to here, but some of the bullpoo I've heard is pretty amazing.