Icecat

33. Identify the only airline NOT from Africa or the Middle East that still flew Boeing 707s on scheduled flights into London Heathrow

Wild guess here, this airline flies their birds until the wings fall off : Bangladesh Biman

Icecat

17. The history of air travel through California’s scenic Lake Tahoe airport has seen a variety of airlines and aircraft operating everything from Viscounts to 727s. In 1987 only one airline operates anything larger than a 20 seater through TVL. Identify that airline and the equipment it operates.

1987 was a merger year..Air Cal/American operating 733's from SFO and SJC..

teddybear99

I believe this could be Air Florida flying a 737-100 with stops in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. This was the main reason Air Florida existed before starting out of state/int'l flying after being acquired by Ed Acker in the late 70's.

WHBM

I'll go for an alternative of Cyprus Airways, with their ex-American Airlines 707-123Bs.

Seat 2A

Seat 2A

Seat 2A

WHBM

I suppose the stories of Biman's operations into Heathrow have spread far and wide. By 1986 they had changed over to their trio of ex-Singapore Airlines DC-10-30s for their London flights. These were regarded with considerable disdain by all at Heathrow, especially the staff at Terminal 3 who had to deal with them. Eventually Heathrow proposed fining them for the way they consistently turned up 12 or so hours late and caused all sorts of disruption with (even then) the tight and oversubscribed terminal arrangements, and then spent further extra hours doing unauthorised maintenance work at the gate. The extra charge for being grossly late did not specifically say Biman, but everyone knew who it was aimed at. The Bangladesh government then made a considerable diplomatic incident out of the whole thing, rich country picking on poor country, etc

It was exacerbated by some tradition of Bangladesh families living in the UK of the whole extended family going over to Heathrow Arrivals, and effectively camping out there until their incoming relative finally turned up, with at times the arrivals waiting area being quite overwhelmed, children holding old photographs being sent on patrol looking for their lost auntie, groups setting up portable gas cooking apparatus in the car park, inability to speak English with the Heathrow security staff (who brought in Bengali-speaking staff to try and assist, but who unfortunately commonly took the side of their linguistic fellows), and so on. Part of the "fining" was an attempt by Heathrow to palm Biman off onto Gatwick, then still under the same ownership, where this didn't apply, and this led to further ructions within the various layers of management at the old British Airports Authority, as a one-time university colleague who had become a BAA manager relayed to me with great amusement.

jrl767

Seat 2A

And with that, I'm off to Tel Aviv aboard my 202nd airline flown - Arkia - aboard an A321LR-Neo of which Arkia was the launch customer. More tonight if I don't get hung up in Israeli customs

jlemon

10. Let's see if I can tap this one in....

Air Florida operating a DC9-10 with a routing of Daytona Beach (DAB) - Jacksonville (JAX) - Tampa (TPA) - Miami (MIA)

jrl767

21- opening salvo: America West with a 737-300 via Phoenix

jlemon

15. This sounds like a route that America West might have attempted. If so, equipment may have been a B737-200. And as for the routing, I'll guess Springfield - Wichita - Phoenix - Los Angeles.

WHBM

Quote:

Back in 1986 however, the HAN-SGN route had just a single daily flight. Identify the airline and aircraft operating that flight.

Hang Khong Vietnam came late to the Tu134, after Vietnam reunification they first started to get them in 1977, and had 10 by the mid 1980s, all supplied new. At German reunification in 1990 they got another 6 secondhand from the old East German carrier Interflug fleet, just as they changed their name to Vietnam Airlines, but then a few years later they leased a first few A320s from Air France, and the world changed for them. Within a couple of years all the Tupolevs were gone. Mostly confined within Indo-China, one of the few "westernised" places to see them was Bangkok.

There seems to be one Tupolev left at SGN, used for aircraft tug driver training around the airport. This is the same as London Stansted did with a former BA Trident 3 when they were finally retired mid-1980s, it was kept in BA basic colours, minus the names, was kept clean, and got towed around Stansted and would be sat at gates well into the 2000s, an absolute time warp when you looked across the ramp at it.

Seat 2A