Balair
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Balair was a Swiss airline that became BalairCTA when it merged with CTA in 1993.
Contents |
[edit] Code Information
- ICAO Code: BBB
- IATA Code: BB
- Call Sign: Balair
[edit] Company History
In the history of Switzerland there are two Balair airlines; the first existed from 1925 to 1931 and was a progenitor of Swissair. The second Balair existed after World War II and started in 1953 as a flying school and pilot training entity. Commercial services began with the acquisition of a Vickers VC.1 Viking. By this time Swissair had invested heavily in Balair and in 1959 two Douglas DC-4 were acquired from Swissair. During that time Balair flew charter flights and did so for many years, In 1960 the Douglas DC-6 came into service.
Scheduled services were from in 1965 and cities served were: Basle, Geneve, Berne, Frankfurt. The DC-4s were replaced by Fokker F27 Friendship sometime in the late 1960s. The fist jet aircraft was the Convair 990 Coronado and then the Douglas DC-9-32 entered service followed by a Douglas DC-8-63 with which it flew to Colombo, Bangkok and Rio de Janeiro. The next expansion came in 1974 when flights to the USA were started and five years later a Douglas DC-10-30 was acquired.
Balair became an all jet airline in 1982 and by 1986 the Airbus A310-325 and the MD-80 were the mainstay of the fleet. By this time Swissair was a majority owner and in 1993 merged Balair with another subsidiary, CTA to form BalairCTA, [1]
[edit] Historical Fleet Details
- Vickers VC.1 Viking
- Douglas DC-4
- Douglas DC-6A
- Sud SE-210 Caravelle
- Fokker F27 Friendship
- Douglas DC-9-32
- Douglas DC-8-62F and Douglas DC-8-73F
- Douglas DC-10-30
- MD-80, MD-82, MD-83 and MD-87
- Airbus A310-325
- Boeing 757-2G5
- Boeing 767-35H(ER) and 767-3BG(ER)
[edit] External Links
- [fleet data]
- [images]
- [memoriam in French]
- [DC-6B]
[edit] Referentes
- ^ Airlines Remembered by BI Hengi, Publisher Midland Publishing
