Throwbacks

In 1946, Brazilian airline Transportes Aéreos Nacional was created by two former pilots and two shareholders. By 1948, the airline took to the skies for the first time, launching service from its headquarters in Belo Horizonte, Brazil to three initial destinations using its first two DC-3 aircraft. Over the course of six years beginning in […]

While the small Central American country of Honduras does not currently have a flag carrier, that was not always the case. Honduras’ original flag carrier was Servicio Aéreo de Honduras S.A., abbreviated to SAHSA, which formed in the 1940s to bring commercial service to the rural country. The original funding for SAHSA would be split […]

Shuttle America spent most of its life as a regional carrier for a variety of major carriers in the United States. However it began life in 1995 as a low cost carrier. The airline began operations on Nov. 12, 1998, based at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn. The first route was between Bradley […]

In 1978, Channel Express took to the skies out of Bournemouth Airport in England as Express Air Services. Initially, the carrier focused on service to the Channel Islands off the coast of France and cargo operations in the U.K. and Europe, in addition to charter flights to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, until […]

When it comes to profitable routes the eastern seaboard of the United States is littered with opportunities to cash in on the short flight times and demand for business travellers to move from one large city to the next. However, for Eastern and Pan Am, there were only a handful of routes that were profitable […]

In the 1990s, Richard Branson and the Virgin Group were looking to expand into continental Europe. By this time, Branson’s Virgin Atlantic was a successful competitor to British Airways and the group was looking to expand. In April 1996, the Virgin Group purchased the EuroBelgian Airlines in nearby Belgium. The leisure airline was founded by […]

In 1928, Airwork Services Limited came to fruition in Middlesex, England with the formation of the Heston Aerodrome, a private airfield funded by the new company. Over the course of its 60-year history, the company undertook a variety of operations from flight training to commercial airline operations. In 1935, the carrier relocated to Gatwick, which […]

With the Canadian leisure market being dominated by carriers like Cananda 3000, SkyService and Sunwing in the start of the 2000s, the ability to get another low-cost leisure airline to provide any sort of substance proved to be a challenge. However, IMP Group, with help from Canada 3000, started a new carrier by the name […]

Boston-Maine Airways was founded in March of 1999 as a feeder airline for the third incarnation of Pan American Airways. Guilford Transportation Industries, a company specializing in railroads, had purchased the Pan Am brand after the failure of the second incarnation of the company. The company used the brand to launch the third Pan Am […]

In 1969,  British cargo airline Tradewinds Airways was formed after the collapse of its predecessor Transglobe Airways. The new airline took to the sky with the launch of charter flights from their hub at London’s Gatwick Airport and would serve a variety of destinations over the course of their history. With their fleet of Canadair CL-44 […]