The most obscure airline you have flown with ...

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bigjobs

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I am not sure if this has been done before. With all the talk of best airlines, worst airlines etc I am wondering about the most obscure airline people have flown (domestically or internationally). My thoughts are that most will be domestic airlines.

Mine: Canadian North and First Air. Both domestic carries based in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
 
Depends on what you mean by obscure and also what is an airline.

Eg some may consider Adria obscure, but I wouldnt (they have a reasonable international and domestic network).

Some small operators have scheduled service on just one route. Is that an airline? What if it isnt scheduled but instead is a regular charter?
 
obscure airlines

Domestically mine would be flying the trusty scheduled services of (formerly) Otters and Banderiente of Aeropelican on the Sydney-Newcastle routes (Belmont and Williamtown) plus riding Hinterland Aviation Cessna Caravans from Cairns to Bloomfiled (Daintree) where you have to scare the wallabies off the grass airstrip before landing and take off.

Internationally, it would be Chalks, who fly 1947 vintage Grunman Mallards, a mini flying boat with about 15 seats at 4,000 ft across the Florida straits on scheduled flights from Miami to Bimini (where I used to research sharks!) and Nassau in the Bahams (incidentally pearl company Paspaley have Mallards with refitted engines based in Darwin). The aircraft appear in the recent Pierce Brosnan/Salma Hayek movie "After the Sunset"...
 
For me it would have to be Air Tanzania from Kampala, Uganda to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A pretty small fleet as you'd guess and not exactly a huge array of routes. The front 3/4 of the plane opened up and freight was loaded in by crane! As passengers we walked out onto the strip and claimed our bags (which had already been checked in) and then they loaded them on board. Now that's security! Except for suicide bombers...
Can't remember much more except that we got there without incident!
 
Air Tanzania - now we're talking!

Flew with them in 1980 and 1981. Dar Es Salaam to Arusha, breakfast served was one frozen solid bread roll, one green banana (could not be peeled) and one plastic knife. The knife rated the tastiest.

On a subsequent Arusha-Dar Es Salaam-Seychelles flight the aircraft was some four hours late arriving into Arusha, was delayed a further two hours on the ground, then finally took off for Dar. Landing was after dark and more than six hours late, so the crew simply powered-down, turned off the lights and went home with no announcement to the pax. All the pax were left sitting in the dark wondering what to do next. A CSA later told me "As the plane was so late, the crew have gone home. Come back tomorrow".

Thier first international service proudly departed Dar-LGW in a veeeery old 707 in about 1977/8. UK authorities inspected it upon arrival, deemed it unairworthy and it languished there for at least another three years that I can recall, masking tape over the name on the fuselage and the giraffe on the tail.

Maya Air was fun three years ago - a Cessna 172 out of a dirty little runway in Chetumal, Mexico, to Ambergris Key, Belize. Preflight announcement was classic: the captain leaning over his chair talking to wife and I (his only paying passengers). "In case of emergency your life vest is under your seat, you can go out either door but just watch out for the propeller at the front". OK then.
 
I once traveled on a now-obscure airline. It was called Ansett. Some might have heard of it.
 
I have flown RAAF - 4 hour caribou trip East Sale to East Sale via Oil rigs at 100ft agl (or asl as the case may be). Lots of fun and I had a good vomit on landing it was so rough.

I still admire the P3s out of Adelaide though - used to see handle them descending in to Nowra to go on Patrol on a morning shift on radar at KSA, same aircraft would come back up on the scope at 11PM at night some 17 hours later when I was back doing the nightshift! Not an airline I know but that is frequent flying without any benefits!
 
Airlink - Dubbo to Walgett. Eastland Air - Brisbane to Toowoomba.
 
Possibly not that obscure at the time, but both long consigned to history now:

DOM - Murray Valley Airways MEL-LST rtn early 80's
INTL - British Caledonian SIN-LGW rtn early 70's

Both flights may have been charter rather than regular services.
 
I noticed a small turboprop plane belonging to "Suckling Air" on the tarmac while landing at Dublin in 1999.

Don't know if it's "most obscure", but the name amused me :roll:

Apparently they're now called "ScotAirways". That's progress, I guess...
 
Hapag-Lloyd Express from Santiago de Compostela to Stuttgart
Turkish Air Osaka to Istanbul, Istanbul to Moscow. Nothing worked!!! Not even the radio!
 
lamberra said:
Turkish Air Osaka to Istanbul, Istanbul to Moscow. Nothing worked!!! Not even the radio!

Flew Turkish Air London to Instanbul. The ride was so rough, my mate travelling with me at the time (a tough bloke & ex. Australian Schoolboys Rugby v/c) asked me to say a prayer for him, as he wasn't Christian.

We survived to enjoy the Turkish coast, Greek Islands... :D
 
Speaking of Yellowknife - Air Tindi Twin Otter
Bush Pilots DC3 Cairns to Coen
 
right after i wrote Canadian North and First Air i thought about Air Tindi as well as Artic Sunwest Charters
 
Hope Air (except it had an accent over the 'e') in Gutemalala in the eighties, a 4 seat Cessna which had seen better days.

Appropriatly named!!!!

Cheers
 
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MetroAir said:
Hope Air (except it had an accent over the 'e') in Gutemalala in the eighties, a 4 seat Cessna which had seen better days.

Appropriatly named!!!!

Cheers

If you hold down the 'Alt' key and type 130 on the number pad you get é

Hope this helps. :D :D
 
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