This inspires a little bonus question. That's a fair span of points along the way on that 1949 trip [Santiago, Chile to London]. So, in 1949, who was the principal carrier you would see, in terms of number of flights per week, at each of those points along the way.
Originally Posted by jlemon
I'll kick this one off....
* Santiago - Linea Aeria Nacional (LAN) Chile
* Buenos Aires - Flota Aerea Mercante Argentina (FAMA)
* Montevideo - Aviacion Del Litoral Fluvial (ALFA)
* Sao Paulo - Viacao Aerea Sao Paulo (VASP)
* Natal - Panair do Brasil S.A. (PAB)
I promised (I think) some commentary on this, so here’s a first bit.
Linea Aeria Nacional (LAN) Chile
LAN Chile was indeed the principal operator in 1949, although local flights only with DC3s and pre-war Lockheeds. Chile is a thin and (very) long country with poor land communications, well suited to domestic air services. Beyond this, US airline Panagra was the main international carrier, one or two flights a day by DC-6 to Buenos Aires, and the same in the opposite direction right up the west coast of South America to Panama and Miami. Quite an amount of Panagra’s business came from journeys within South America. There were, in 1949, just a small scattering of other operators. BSAA had two separate routes to London, one over to Buenos Aires and then across the South Atlantic, as described, the other up the west coast to the Caribbean, and on from there, or sometimes just connecting onto BOAC.
BSAA had one of aviation’s big mysteries in 1947 on the Buenos Aires to Santiago sector, where an Avro York completely disappeared, after repeatedly sending a bizarre Morse message. Look up “Stendec” for more. The quite short route is not at all suitable for an unpressurised aircraft like the York, needing to climb to at least 20,000 feet to clear the mountains. Flying it all the way to London must have been a huge challenge. The wreckage of the York was finally discovered embedded in an Andes glacier in 2000, quite a lot was preserved, the bodies were identifiable, and a tyre was even still inflated. Good old British tyre valves !
BSAA was an extraordinary operation, led by the former head or the RAF Pathfinder bombers, DCT Bennett, who brought his “press on” style, and indeed his old aircraft, marginally converted, with him. Neither were suited to airline operation at all. For a carrier who only ever had a handful of flights a week, BSAA had no less than three which completely vanished without trace, the York and two newer Avro Tudors somehow lost mid-Atlantic. Bennett (inevitably) managed to make the news with the first ever flight out of Heathrow, January 1 1946, on a proving flight all the way to Santiago, which as ever he commanded personally, just as he did the separate sets of search flights that went to look for their vanished aircraft. BSAA was merged into BOAC by the UK government, who owned both airlines, later in 1949. Best known of their crews nowadays is Richard Branson’s mother, who was a stewardess with them. On the first ever Virgin Atlantic 747 to New York, she dug out her old BSAA uniform from the back of the cupboard.
* Buenos Aires - Flota Aerea Mercante Argentina (FAMA)
Through the first half of the 20th century Argentina was quite a significant emigration point from the UK. If you didn’t fancy Australia or South Africa, Argentina was often next choice. The various communities have since then slowly merged in over time into the rest of the country.Argentina had a series of independent airlines in 1949, which were compulsorily nationalised mid-year into one by autocratic president Juan Peron. Real pioneer Aeroposta Argentina from the 1920s had been once managed by classic aviation author Antoine de Saint Expury and features in his classic aviation books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry but their long-line routes right down to Cape Horn , only left a couple of times a day, government subsidised via post office contracts. They were however the favourite of Peron, who renamed them Aerolineas Argentinas, and then merged the others into it.
The principal operator was an airline probably few will have heard of, called Zonda, who had quite a large DC3 fleet and more departures from BA than all the rest added together. Local flights only. They had quite a parade of early morning departures fanning out across the country. Longer haul flights were by the aforementioned FAMA, but they had just a few flights a week, and a handful of DC-6 and DC-4 to run them. They did get as far as Madrid once a week. FAMA had a liking for British Avro aircraft, they had run immediate postwar Lancastrians, they had Yorks, and had ordered the Tudor, which were never delivered.
Separately to the airport, over in the River Plate estuary in 1949 was the most substantial big flying boat operation outside what BOAC and its partners were still doing, using the same British-built Short Sandringham aircraft. These had originally been bought by a carrier called Dodero, who soon changed their name to Alfa, and eventually got rolled up into Aerolineas Argentinas. The flying boats carried on through all these name changes, and into the 1960s, they even bough secondhand ones from other operations which had come to an end. There was a high frequency shuttle across to Montevideo in Uruguay (see below), about 100 miles, and lengthy all-day runs up the River Plate right into Paraguay.
If you want to know just how I know all this detail, a substantial bit of research from a while ago was shamelessly plagiarised and scanned in by an Argentinian website. Well, now we can all read it.
http://www.histarmar.com.ar/AVIACION/SundringhamsAA/LadiesoftheRiverPlate.htm
I’m always reminded, on hearing about this operation, about Graham Greene’s novel (and a movie, Michael Caine, Richard Gere) “The Honorary Consul”, set in Corrientes, one of the upriver city flying boat stops. It has the usual Greene collection of seedy has-been British overseas expats, only the arms dealer seems to be missing. The old flying boats would have fitted perfectly into the atmosphere.
on to Montevideo, capital of Uruguay
- Aviacion Del Litoral Fluvial (ALFA)
Regarded as a minor point nowadays, it is noteworthy that all of the European airlines from Buenos Aires in 1949 stopped there. Uruguay had prospered in WW2 and after, sending vast quantities of food, particularly chilled meat, to Europe. It was a significant UK commercial point. Main national operator here was, as for years afterwards, Causa, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t see them at the airport. They also had the big Short Sandringham flying boats, and shared the route to Buenos Aires with Alfa from Argentina. There appears no landplane airline based in Uruguay at the time. At the airport, principal operator was actually Pan Am, it was the final stop heading south to Argentina, and they did twice daily runs south to BA and north to New York (not Miami, they went via San Juan). A couple of Brazilian carriers came through a few times a week, but Pan Am seems to have scooped most of the traffic.