TBT

In the early months of 2001, low-cost competition was heating up in Canada. WestJet had started operations a few years ago in 1996 and was growing quickly. Discount airline Canada 3000 had been a charter operator in Canada for many years but began offering scheduled flights in May of 2001. The world was also seeing […]

In the mid-1960s, Swiss entrepreneur Karl Jakob Rüdin was interested in branching out and creating a vacation getaway in Kenya that would create a complete getaway with the company taking care of everything for passengers along the way. The tour operator, called African Safari Club, would be founded in 1967 and would start with their […]

Western Airlines had a long and storied history spanning six decades. Like many early airlines, the carrier was founded with a mail contract and tasked with transporting mail for the government. In the early days of aviation, the U.S. Postal Service helped to provide the founding of numerous airlines. The time and speed saved by […]

A few months after PLUNA’s demise and liquidation, Uruguayan aviation was lacking a flag carrier and, most importantly, a strategy. There were a couple of private operators that jumped right into the extinct carrier’s routes. Former Pluna employees were bound to migrate to new companies, but a small group aimed for something higher. A company […]

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the newly-formed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region of Europe would become a melting pot of new privatized airlines looking to capitalize on new markets and untapped services inside these newly independent nations. This trend would see airline rise in fall in the 1990s and early 2000s, one […]

Over the years Richard Branson and the Virgin Group have built an empire that spans the globe. Included in his empire has been multiple airlines, including the group’s flagship airline Virgin Atlantic. In the early 2000s, the Virgin Group and Richard Branson set its sights on conquering the skies above the United States. In 2004, […]

In the controversial 1990s, Argentina’s economy experienced a boom, a boom that can be only compared with its catastrophic awakening in the 2000s. We can say the same thing about Southern Winds, an Argentinian carrier that lasted nine years and whose incredible growth was just a buildup for its demise. Founded in 1996 with financial […]

With the demand for travel to leisure destinations increasing, legacy brands have been coming up with their own leisure-specific offshoots to work alongside their main airlines. CSA Czech Airlines is just one of those airlines that decided to take up the task and launch its own leisure specific brand in 2010 in the hopes of […]

Earlier this week, Nordic low-cost carrier Primera Air ceased operations after ten years of operations. The closure came as a surprise to many as the airline was going through a period of rapid expansion in the transatlantic market, with four route announcements in the last two months of its operation. Today, we will take a […]

SkyWork Airlines of Switzerland has roots of starting small and changing over time. The airline was originally a flight school and private airline founded in Belp using smaller propeller aircraft from central Switzerland to neighboring cities. The to-be carrier was founded in 1983 under the name SkyWork AG. As the company expanded, SkyWork started to […]