Track

I once had an even more complicated trip out of East Berlin. I had arrived in West Berlin from West Germany on a diplomatic passport, having taken the train from Austria, and wanted to return on the East Berlin-Vienna sleeper. Because of the four-power status of Berlin I didn't need - and couldn't have received - a visa stamp from the East Germans when I passed into East Berlin to catch the train, which means I didn't have a visa stamp to permit me to leave East Germany on the train at the Czech border. I also couldn't take the bus from West Berlin to Schoenefeld Airport, where the Vienna train made a stop, since this border point was available only for departures from the airport. So I bought a ticket on Interflug to Prague (on an Ilyushin Il-18 propjet) and took the bus to Schoenefeld airport. I waited for the train to arrive and told the sleeping-car conductor I would join the train in Prague. i then flew to Prague, had a very nice dinner and got into my bed on the sleeper shortly before midnight for a quiet journey back to Vienna.

AeroWesty

Answers 3, 4, 5, 8, 14 and 15 are either outright guesses or I'm not totally sure about my answers because I had to make educated guesses on based upon the material available to me:

1) Western on a DC-10.

2) Hawaiian on an L-1011

3) Northwest on a DC-10

4) Royal Jordanian is my guess

5) Air Canada or Delta is my guess

6) American

7) TWA and America West to JFK

8) TWA on an L-1011 is my guess

9) Braniff II (flying former Western Airlines 732s)

10) Laredo Airlines

11) 2A = Hawaiian Airlines, BD = AirTran

12) Muse Air

13) The original North Central Airlines, route was Wausau to Stevens Point to Madison to Milwaukee in the morning, then Milwaukee to Sturgeon Bay to Land O' Lakes to Wausau in the afternoon.

14) Delta

15) TWA was the first airline to show movies in 1961, but I'm not sure if it was on TVs or not.

16) American Airlines - Sabre

Wally Bird

Seat 2A

1) Western on a DC-10. Incorrect

2) Hawaiian on an L-1011 Correct

3) Northwest on a DC-10 Incorrect

4) Royal Jordanian is my guess Incorrect

5) Air Canada or Delta is my guess Incorrect

6) American Incorrect

7) TWA and America West to JFK America West is correct

8) TWA on an L-1011 is my guess Incorrect

9) Braniff II (flying former Western Airlines 732s) Correct

10) Laredo Airlines Correct

11) 2A = Hawaiian Airlines, BD = AirTran Well, I'm going to have to say correct because you are, however the "major" airlines I am looking for are still out there

12) Muse Air Correct

13) The original North Central Airlines, route was Wausau to Stevens Point to Madison to Milwaukee in the morning, then Milwaukee to Sturgeon Bay to Land O' Lakes to Wausau in the afternoon. Correct

14) Delta Incorrect

15) TWA was the first airline to show movies in 1961, but I'm not sure if it was on TVs or not. Incorrect

16) American Airlines - Sabre Incorrect


With regard to answering all these questions in one fell swoop, I went through this situation once before here and could have addressed it better than I did at the time. This time I'll just wade in and say it's a nice thing to leave a few questions for others to have a go at as well. There are a lot of diverse time zones represented amongst our regular participants and it's nice to be able to sign on to this thread and see a few newly posted questions available rather than having them all answered already. If there is anything positive to be taken from a few of these answers being incorrect, it's that it will allow others a chance to participate. The other factor of course is that it takes time to page through the OAG and/or timetables or search the internet in order to come up with these questions - at least for me it does - so if the trend of answering 10-15 questions all at once continues, speaking for myself at least I reckon I'll limit the number of questions I present to 2-3 at a time. Thanks

Seat 2A

Good answers all, Wally, and had I not known better prior to coming up with them, my answers might well have mirrored yours. However the only correct answer amongst the above is #11.

US Airways is -B7, a designation that was originally set for Allegheny who first ordered and flew a pair of 727-200s back in 1970. Those aircraft were sold to Braniff after just a year and a half of use.

Southwest's Boeing designation is -H4, and the first 737-2H4 was delivered to Southwest in June of 1971.

AeroWesty

ARGH, this one frustrates me the most, since I remember L-1011s parked next to each other at LAS midday, one for JFK, one for STL. With my TWA schedules in storage, I went on fading memory for the date. I'll leave my other guess for someone else.

No problem, and point taken. This afternoon I was waiting for a phone call and had a rare block of time on my hands, so I did a bit of digging around in my brain and the internet, surprised at how close I could or couldn't get to info for 1988. Starting up in any new thread that is this large takes a bit of a learning curve for the etiquette involved.

Seat 2A

WHBM

I still have a copy of a whole book devoted to the bizarre arrangements of the 1980s in Berlin. It is called "Berlin Transit", and was theoretically aimed at travel agency staff to tell them of how to organise things for those doing the East-West transit there, but extends itself into a complete description of all the divided arrangements, air, train, local transport, etc. The author is John Price (always signed J H Price), who was a longstanding worldwide tram and Metro buff, and edited a magazine for fellow buffs of these, and in this book in his usual style he leaves absolutely no stone unturned, even covering things like which nationality of taxi driver and visa combination could drive you through Checkpoint Charlie, and which couldn't. Met him a few times. John's day job was the editor, for very many years, of the well-known Cooks Continental Timetable, still an essential companion to train travel across Europe, and it was said he knew the times of every train in there off the top of his head ! He'd have been a great one to set obscure travel questions here.

miniliq

I believe it's LAN Chile --YMX(Mirabel)-JFK-MIA-SCL

How about Eastern from JFK.

Continental from EWR and Air West from JFK.

AeroWesty

That was my third choice, but I dismissed it since it wasn't a PeoplExpress route that I could find, and if it was, it didn't survive the buyout. Regardless, I could find evidence of LAS-EWR being flown by CO in late 1989, so if TWA is incorrect, I'd go with CO too.

The OP's hint to consider all NY airports also leads me to believe he wants us to look at EWR.

It's one of those jigsaw puzzle routes you have to make considered choices about if you don't have the relevant OAG sitting in front of you.

jlemon

1. Spring is late in coming to Alaska and so you've decided to take advantage of the only nonstop flight between Anchorage and Honolulu. Which airline and aircraft would you have flown on?

I'll go with Hawaiian Air. And as for the aircraft, how about a DC-8? I believe that HA would match equipment to demand on this route. Wintertime, an L-1011 would probably be used. But by May, the aircraft may have been an old DC-8.

Seat 2A

Correct on all of the above! I figured the "twice weekly" reference in question five might give it away. LA used to operate this flight with a DC-10, complete with First Class sleeper seats and LAN's great F cabin service.

Fares between YMX and either JFK or MIA aboard these limited frequency flights were very affordable compared to what AA, EA or AC were charging at the time. I had the good fortune to fly the YMX-JFK-MIA route a couple years earlier in First Class aboard an Aerolineas Argentinas 747 for only about $60.00 more than a Y class ticket on the local carriers. Additionally, the YMX-JFK sector was a great route to pick up an inexpensive flight aboard comparatively exotic carriers such as LOT (IL-62), CSA (IL-62) and Royal Air Maroc (747-200/747SP).

After years of seeing National and later Pan Am DC-10s on the MIA-NYC route, it was surprising to see only Eastern operating the type. Those were DC-10-30s that often continued on to South America. If I remember correctly, the cabin was set up in a three class international configuration and judging by the menus posted in my menu thread, Eastern's "El Interamericano" service was a delicious way to fly between the US and South America. By the way, if you scroll around the above referenced menu, you'll find quite a few more EA menus from its South American service.

Finally, I was also surprised that both TWA and United no longer serviced the NYC-LAS market with nonstop flights. At one time you could fly a TWA 747 out of JFK to LAS, and America West did indeed ply that route with its own 747 (ex-KLM) a couple of years later.

Right on, Mr. Lemon! Hawaiian Air it was, though if it had been operated with a DC-8 I would have been on it at least once! In the May 1988 schedules at least, HA is shown using the L-1011, though the D8S does show up on a couple of Hawaii/West Coast schedules . I once flew upon a Hawaiian Air L-1011 on a short flight between Portland and Seattle. It was an ex-All Nippon bird and the coach seating did not appear to have been changed a wit from its original high density configuration seen on the comparatively short domestic flights within Japan. PDX-SEA was fine. Anything longer than that would not have been all that pleasant - at least not in coach.

jlemon

1. I do remember seeing a Hawaiian Air DC-8 as well as one of their L-1011s at different times at ANC back in the day......and I did see an HA timetable schedule where the L10 service was discontinued in April and a DC-8 then flew the same sched (four days a week back in 1987, I think)....

7. Continental from EWR? Of course! But Air West from JFK?!

Hey, Air West/Hughes Airwest never got further east than Des Moines, Milwaukee and Houston Hobby! Although RW was long gone by 1988, of course.....

I believe what our good friend miniliq meant was America West......

Wally Bird

OK, two more potshots:
Q2 THE Airline ?
Q4 Eastern from STL ?

Seat 2A

2. Moving from the tropics to the desert, you’ve booked yourself aboard the only nonstop flight offered between Honolulu and Las Vegas. It operates just twice a week. Name the airline and aircraft.

I left question 2 unanswered in case anyone else wanted to have a go at it. Are you effectively crying "Uncle"?

4. You’d like to fly aboard an L-1011 on your upcoming trip from Detroit to Montreal. What airline would you call?

We're talking nonstop service here, and here's a big hint: It was a foreign carrier using fifth freedom traffic rights. There was also another foreign airline serving this route. Anyone care to guess?

I should have said that were there a DC-8 on the ANC-HNL route I would like to have been on it. As to HA DC-8s serving ANC, I don't doubt you and hopefully didn't imply that I did. My only flight on that market was in 1983 aboard a Western DC-10. We departed Honolulu on a nice late June evening at about 6:00pm. As we flew north the sun set, and as we approached Alaska the sun rose again, then set again as we descended into Anchorage. Great flight, and the flight attendant introduced me to the pleasure of Amaretto on my ice cream sundae instead of hot fudge.

My thoughts exactly, though it would've been cool to see a Hughes Airwest 757 or larger...