jrl767

37- ok, how about United to Qantas over SFO


42B- might the missing 747 have been Air Canada to Toronto?

Seat 2A

WHBM

Or maybe not ... a trawl around under Luxair shows nothing. But a search for Trek Airways from Johannesburg gives a little Airliners.net posting that says :
Followed by a picture of LX-LGP itself, which indeed was ex-Singapore Airlines (and not that old either, although reseated all-economy for European holiday flights)). And a fuel stop in Cairo. Although most of the other recollections are of the 747SP. The A300 was after a few years sold to South African Airways, who already had the type in their fleet, so I suspect one would likely find their crews up front, as always applied to the 747SP as well.

I always thought Luxair used the A300 it had for a few years on holiday flights to Palma and The Canaries, There may not be a lot of population in Luxembourg, but it's only a couple of hours drive by road from a lot of France, Belgium and Germany. Frankfurt is the nearest major city. The 747SP seems to have been in the fleet throughout the 1980s, but seemingly wasn't always on the Johannesburg run.

The whole Luxair/Trek scene was shrouded in some secrecy, in order to fly across Africa when South African airlines were banned there, without upsetting too many sensibilities. Although painted in Luxair livery the operator was officially Luxavia, and the aircraft were registered in Luxembourg. The South African accents of the pilots must have been a bit of a giveaway to ATC, but then much of African aviation all over seems to be run by South African pilots.

I've a recent bit of a soft spot for little Luxair, whose principal London destination is London City rather than Heathrow. During the Covid lockdown they were always the last operator left flying, and in particular the first to return, when BA was still not operating, and they kept the flag flying, on some days the only flight there. Probably not profitable for them at all. A recent schedule change now has them overnighting here (it's Q400 LX-LQC tonight), and when I go out running in the early morning down by the airport they are commonly the first away at 06.45 when it opens. I'll give it a little wave tomorrow.
I remember one hideous trip in 1985 in an o

WHBM

How about an SAS 767 on Stockholm to Tokyo, followed by a UTA 747 which operates their long-established route from back in DC8 days for Japanese tourists from Tokyo to Papeete.

Seat 2A

jrl767

given the lack of feedback on airlines, I had contemplated NRT (SK connecting to JL) as my next guess

however, I see that our esteemed colleague from Across the Pond pointed us in the right direction while I was spending the last 20 or so minutes looking up aircraft data and posting a rebuttal in a recent AS board thread about payload limitations

Toshbaf

41. (1987) With its acquisition of Republic Airlines, Northwest has an even larger presence in the Southeast. Its new hub in Memphis, Tennessee was never a hotbed of activity for widebody aircraft but Northwest has introduced MEM’s first 747 service along with DC-10 nonstops from four different U.S airports. With this question, we’re looking to identify those four airports. Are you up for it?
MSP, DTW and MIA have been correctly identified. The other two airports do not include BOS, LAX, MKE, PHX or TPA

Answer: Could it be MCO and ORD?

It wasn't 1987 but later when I had the opportunity to fly aboard KLM MEM-AMS more than once. I flew aboard a MD-11 and 767-300ER. I also flew MEM to SEA, SFO, and LAX. Now MEM is likely very quiet but not quite a ghost town.

jrl767

40- I think I’m into “wild guess” territory at this point … Alyemda (Yemen Airlines) via Sana’a, connecting at Aden

Seat 2A

Toshbaf

Oh, I counted wrong.

MCO.

WHBM

1992 was when UTA merged into Air France, so it depends which month the OAG was. However there is the usual French lack of clarity for who operated what (very notable on their domestic flights) to be taken into account ...

Air France were thus back on a sector of one of the more bizarre round-the-world flights, which I think we covered before. Paris to French Tahiti was most logically through Los Angeles, which Air France operated to that point, connecting to UTA beyond. For UTA to operate this route from their Paris base was a right nuisance, their own route there was out across Asia and the South Pacific, ending up three-quarters of the way round the world, but having to go back the same way. Both airlines wanted to operate the whole route, but the French government, recognising the demand from Paris really didn't justify two carriers, would not give licences for this. Air France then came up with an "end run", where their South American route from Paris through Venezuela and Peru was extended across the Pacific to Tahiti, and then Tokyo, returning home from there. No competition anywhere near the new route, so they got licenced into Tahiti. The sector from Peru had hardly any passengers or demand, and was a huge loss maker, but onwards to Tokyo got sold quite extensively to Japanese tourists. In the end some agreement prevailed, the South Pacific sector was given up, and UTA started Papeete to Tokyo. For a while.

jlemon

I'm thinking the missing stops we are looking for that were made by this Ozark service were Moline followed by Rockford.

Now what I'm not sure about was the equipment. Was it a D9S or DC9? Let's go with a DC-9-10.

JoeDTW

RFD is correct, but MLI is incorrect. So, the routing is DEN-ALO-XXX-RFD-ORD.

OZ's timetables don't differentiate between -10s and -30s. Flights in the 500 and 900 series are DC-9s, and flights in the 700 and 800 series are FH-227s.

I'm sure part of the reason OZ's timetables didn't differentiate between the two models of DC-9s was because they probably swapped -10s and -30s based on flight loads.

jlemon

Back then in that part of the U.S. midwest, if there was a runway that could take an FH-227B, Ozark was probably operating scheduled service into that airfield.

But of course we are talking about a McDonnell Douglas twin jet here so let's make that second stop in Cedar Rapids.

JoeDTW

CID is incorrect.

To help you out, here's the schedule pattern at the "mystery stop":

MKE: 2x day, DC-9
MLI: 1x day, FH-227, continues to STL
RFD: 1x day, DC-9, continues to ORD
STL: 1x day DC-9
SUX: 1x day DC-9, continues to DEN
ALO: 1x day DC-9, continues to DEN