Toshbaf

Sorry. Try again. Not Air Inter. Not F27. Not Orly.

Toshbaf

Not bad but no cigar or three.

Not Air Inter.
Not Orly.
Not Mercure.

Toshbaf

Excellent answer. Some of it correct.

Air France is a reasonably correct answer. It was actually Air France, operated by _____.
LYS, not correct.
F28. Correct! So 1.5 or 2 of 3 correct. I see a chicken dinner being prepared.

Toshbaf

That is one of the biggest airline mistakes that I have made. I had the chance to fly aboard a Dassault Mercure but didn't. I only saw one. Opportunity lost. Now the best thing possible is to see one is a museum. The second biggest airline mistake was not to have flown in a Concorde. A bit expensive but it could have been done. A potential third airline mistake was not to have sought out a Trident route, which may have been possible, maybe not. On my first European trip, the plan was flying into London then flying somewhere on the continent. Surely, it would have been possible to fly on a Trident. Instead, I picked a Lufthansa 737-200 flight. Not even a 737-100, which would have been a first and only time on a 737-100 as I didn't fly any PeoplExpress 737-100's (ex-Lufthansa).

jlemon

Back in the late 1990's when I was once again living in the Houston area (and once again plotting my escape from the Big H), I had the opportunity to fly round trip on an Air France Concorde between New York and Paris by redeeming Continental OnePass miles. One would fly first class between Houston Intercontinental and Newark on CO, change airports in the New York area (possibly via scheduled helicopter service although this was not included in the OnePass mileage redemption offer), and then fly with AF on board the Concorde round trip between JFK and CDG. And if memory serves, the trip could have been accomplished for a mere 100,000 CO miles plus a fairly modest surcharge.

Well, of course, I agonized about the number of miles ("Good Lord, 100,000 miles! Argggh!") and ended up spending about half the CO OnePass miles for a round trip BusinessFirst ticket on board a Continental DC-10-30 between IAH and CDG. In retrospect, I really should have seized the opportunity to fly on board the Concorde.....

And speaking about the Concorde, here's a BONUS quiz question.....

What airline was reportedly in the planning stages during the late 1970's for possible scheduled Concorde flights between two cities in the U.S., being Atlanta and Houston, and a city in Europe with this service planned to possibly begin around 1980? The airline in question never operated the Concorde but was reportedly said to be in the midst of making arrangements to add two of the SST aircraft to its fleet (which subsequently never happened). And as part of your answer, also identify the European city that would have been served by the routes to and from ATL and IAH. ANSWERED - British Caledonian

jrl767

how about Air Alpes for the AF affiliate (although LIL seems rather far afield for their name ...)

looking at a map it seems the only plausible intermediate stop in France would be Strasbourg/SXB

jrl767

it’s unclear from the way you phrased the question whether the route was IAH-ATL-XXX or there were two separate TATL routes

FAA restrictions on supersonic flight over land would have meant the former was more likely, akin to the BN/BA interchange service (DFW-IAD-LHR) we have discussed more than a few times

Concorde necessarily had an extremely high fuel burn rate, so unless there was a technical stop planned at the Azores it would appear that Lisbon/LIS (being the closest European destination to ATL) is the logical answer, but that leg is still ~500 miles longer than IAD-LHR

TATL from IAH would have had a very long subsonic leg to the Atlantic coast; alternatively, supersonic over the Gulf of Mexico would have involved either tracking between Florida and Cuba to remain over water or decelerating while crossing the middle of the peninsula, and I seriously doubt either would have been feasible without a fuel stop

I’m whistling in the dark as to a candidate airline besides TAP, so just for grins I’ll say Pan Am

WHBM

I was going to say the same.

I seem to recall that an Air Alsace F28 did Strasbourg-Lille-London early morning, then back all the way London-Lille-Strasbourg-Milan by midday, and returned the same in the afternoon/evening. Badged as Air France.

French "geographical" airline names have never meant much to where they were actually operating.

WHBM

I think these were branded as Air France flights. They were never too fussy about what it said on the outside of the aircraft, Air France aircraft turned up on plenty of internal routes, and for odd tag-on domestic flights, such as Nantes-Toulouse-Algiers, you would find in the timetable that Nantes to Toulouse was under the Air Inter brand, while the rest was Air France. The same applied to Air Charter, the Air France holiday flight subsidiary, generally with hand-me-down main fleet aircraft, who nevertheless passed them back and forth with the scheduled fleet as required. Other European operators like BEA Airtours or Condor did the same.

Air inter was anyway owned by a group of Air France, UTA, and the SNCF railway.

jlemon

I think it was XXX - ATL and XXX - IAH although the information I've seen with regard to the airline in question was not clear concerning this....but a technical stop in Gander or Halifax was mentioned for the Atlanta service.

And nope, it wasn't Pan Am. Plus we are still looking for the European city.

WHBM

I'll really go out on a limb here and say Iran Air. Tehran-London-Houston.

jlemon

That is an excellent guess, of course, as I believe Iran Air did order two Concorde aircraft but did not take delivery of either of them. But it wasn't Iran Air.

However, there is some good news here as the European city in question was indeed London.

kochleffel

I did fly on one of those 737-100s, only once. It was a late evening flight from EWR that departed late, around midnight, with passengers for it and other delayed flights all milling around the grim, grey basement that passed for a passenger terminal. On the descent into CLE, a flight attendant announced, "Please check the overhead compartments for any personal belongings or small children that you may have placed there."

kochleffel

I had enough CO miles then, too, and didn't do it, either.

Toshbaf

Excellent!

We have a winner!

Previously answered: Fokker 28, Air France (operated by another airline, not Air Alpes), LIL-SXB-LIN!

In 1986, it was TAT. The planes, at least most of them if not all, had Air France titles but TAT on the nose.