Seat 2A

Good call, 24.05.2004! I flew Midway back in 2000. They provided me my first ever flights aboard both the 737-700 and the Fokker 100.

jlemon

30) Correct! And the ad in question includes an illustration of what appears to be a Boeing 737-700.

jlemon

A good call indeed!

And here's how you did with regard to.....

28) West Palm Beach (PBI) is correct! And guess what? There was still one more airport that was served by National with the DC-10 at this time. So I've changed the quiz item to reflect this.

Seat 2A

jrl767

well the q still says "in the U.S." so I will posit BOS

jlemon

28) Yep, this quiz item stated airports in the U.S. served by National with the DC-10 in early 1976. And, nope, Boston (BOS) was not one of them.....

Seat 2A

How 'bout Newark?

jlemon

28) Correcto-mundo, Senor! National was operating daily nonstop EWR-MIA and EWR-MCO service with the DC-10 at this time.

And the airline was also operating this multistop transcon flight....

NA 34: San Diego (SAN) 8:25a - 9:02a Los Angeles (LAX) 9:55a - 3:13p New Orleans (MSY) 3:45p - 5:58p Tampa (TPA) 6:30p - 7:01p Orlando (MCO) 7:25p - 8:06p Miami (MIA)
Op: Daily
Equip: DC-10

Seat 2A

That's my kind of flight! What a great way to spend the day crossing the country. If ever they should invent a time machine in my lifetime... Back to the present though, I did just book me a pair of First Class seats JNB-DXB-SFO including a 16 hour leg over to SFO on the A380. Guess I'll finally get to try out that onboard shower after all!

WHBM

Quick stab
Air California/Air Cal
Air Florida
Aloha
America West
American
Continental
People Express
Sierra Pacific

I seem to recall that Aeroflot began using the Il96 on Moscow to New York in 1993, nonstop, replacing the IL86 which stopped at Shannon. Were Delta codesharing with them as well, with a Tristar 500 ?

jlemon

34) Correct on all counts! Although I was not aware of Sierra Pacific operating schedule service with the 737. Do you recall the route(s)? I know this information would be of interest!

33) Delta is correct! The equipment operated by DL at this time on the Moscow (SVO) - New York (JFK) route was the Boeing 767-300 configured with an F/C/Y cabin. DL 31 flew daily except on Mondays and Wednesdays. This flight also appeared in the OAG as SU* 31.

Here are the westbound Aeroflot schedules at this same time per the October 1993 OAG:

SU 315: SVO-SNN-YQX-JFK
Op: Mon., Weds., Sun. only
Equip: Ilyushin Il86 (OAG code ILW)
Notes: discontinued after Oct. 27. SNN - Shannon, Ireland. YQX - Gander, Newfoundland.

SU 315: SVO-JFK
Op: Mon., Weds. only
Equip: Ilyushin Il96 (OAG code IL9)
Note: effective Nov. 1

SU 315: SVO-JFK
Op: Tues., Fri. only
Equip: ILW
Note: discontinued after Oct. 29

SU 315: SVO-JFK
Op: Tues., Fri., Sun. only
Equip: IL9
Note: effective Oct. 31

Both the Il86 and Il96 were configured with F/C/Y cabins.

WHBM

That's very fortunate, JL, you just seem to have chanced on the moment in 1993 when Aeroflot changed over from the Ilyushin 86 to the 96. Several were delivered in 1993, then they cut back to a trickle of just one or two per year until production stopped in the late 1990s. They didn't last for long on the New York operation once the 767/777s came along, and they have all gone now, they eked out their last years on charters down to Black Sea and Mediterranean resorts, and had a last stand on the shuttle from Moscow to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. One used to do the London Heathrow flight on Saturday mornings around 2003-6, just for capacity, which I saw quite a bit of, and met a couple of people arriving on it. One had been upgraded and described the full black caviar and Russian cognac treatment therein - on a 3-hour European flight.

Regarding Sierra Pacific, mostly charter, didn't they do a lot of sub-charter work when necessary for America West routes ?

Seat 2A

I don't believe they did either. I did however fly between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City aboard a Sierra Pacific 737-247 operating a scheduled flight on behalf of Morris Air. That was back in 1992. The aircraft wore the full SP livery.

WHBM

I think this is a difference between UK/European and US practice. The longstanding holiday flight operators might have a fleet of 10 or 20 aircraft, and at the peak time, on August weekends, would schedule the whole lot, continuous through 24 hours (you can get three round trips to the Mediterranean and back in that time, leaving at about 7 am, 3 pm and 11 pm). Any aircraft breakdown and there was no scope in the fleet for a substitution, so another, commonly lesser, operator who did have some slack would be sub-chartered in. Maybe just for one flight, maybe for some days.

Even scheduled operators like British Airways may do this to cover various eventualities. There is still nowadays Titan Airways, operating out of London Stansted, who specialise in having aircraft and crews sat available on 30 minutes call; they even have a BAE146/RJ with all the special steep approach kit and pilot certifications to operate into London City, and have stood in for pretty much all the operators there over time.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority has always very hard on operators "having adequate resources to maintain their services", particularly for scheduled flights; cancelling scheduled flights for not enough passengers booked is just not acceptable, unless there are genuinely zero reservations, so all scheduled operators need plans in their Air Operators Certificate for how they will handle disruptions. We've touched on a few such arrangements over time. Channel Airways, when they had Tridents and One-Elevens in the 1960s-70s, never got proper holiday flight work for them, and could be a first line of defence at summer weekends, turning up anywhere unexpectedly, and of course charging a very substantial amount for such a service, as Titan continue to do.

Track

To return to a question you posed many months ago, Ilyushin is the only widebody-plane manufacturer whose products never crashed with passengers on board (only on training and re-positioning flights).