Which airline?

irlrobins

Hoping someone could help me out this question. Way back in Oct 2003 I took a trip to Dubrovnik. I flew from Dublin on a charter flight organised by Croatia Tours, and I'm fairly certain it was on a Irish charter airline, based out of Shannon. But I can't recall the name of the airline, which is wrecking my head.

I'm certain about one thing though, as we boarded in Dublin, we entered the aircraft through airstairs through the tail. So that would suggest the aircraft was a B727 or MD80? Anyone recall an Irish airline with such a plane back in 2003?

stopthepanic

Was it AviaJet?
They were operating charters out of Dublin back then.

http://www.jetphotos.net/photo/240000

Comhrá

There was a short-lived Irish charter airline called Eirjet back around 2003 - 2004. They were Shannon based afaik but I think they only operated a fleet of three Airbus A320.

https://en.wiki2.org/wiki/Eirjet

irlrobins

Eirjet sounded familiar to me, but as you point out, their fleet doesn't match the plane I boarded in Dublin. Unless they had wet leased it in.

pepe the prawn

There was another Shannon based charter, skynet I think?

Irish Steve

I was working the ramp back in 2003, and I seem to recall that there were MD80 jets being used for charters around that time, along with an old 747 from Iceland that did things like Lourdes flights. Not sure who the operator was at this stage, there were no logos or any other identifications on them.

roundymac

The 747 would probably have been an Air Atlanta bird. They also did Heineken Cup charters from SNN and Cork .

Innisfallen

irlrobins wrote: »

Eirjet sounded familiar to me, but as you point out, their fleet doesn't match the plane I boarded in Dublin. Unless they had wet leased it in.

Eirjet had a mind boggling charter policy. They would wet lease their fleet out, then in turn, wetlease in other aircraft to cover what ever charters they had booked - so, could have been an Eirjet flight, but no idea who would actually own the aircraft.

Shannon757

Innisfallen wrote: »

Eirjet had a mind boggling charter policy. They would wet lease their fleet out, then in turn, wetlease in other aircraft to cover what ever charters they had booked - so, could have been an Eirjet flight, but no idea who would actually own the aircraft.

Wonder why they went out of business? :rolleyes:

irlrobins

Innisfallen wrote: »

Eirjet had a mind boggling charter policy. They would wet lease their fleet out, then in turn, wetlease in other aircraft to cover what ever charters they had booked - so, could have been an Eirjet flight, but no idea who would actually own the aircraft.

Likely culprit so. As I said, boarding through the tail stuck in my mind, hadn't done that before or since. Another detail that I remember was that the on board meal was essentially a packed lunch, but the sandwich was one of the best I've had on any flight.

Funny the small things we remember!

Shannon757

irlrobins wrote: »

Likely culprit so. As I said, boarding through the tail stuck in my mind, hadn't done that before or since. Another detail that I remember was that the on board meal was essentially a packed lunch, but the sandwich was one of the best I've had on any flight.

Funny the small things we remember!

Could have been a Yak-42.

stopthepanic

irlrobins wrote: »

Likely culprit so. As I said, boarding through the tail stuck in my mind, hadn't done that before or since. Another detail that I remember was that the on board meal was essentially a packed lunch, but the sandwich was one of the best I've had on any flight.

Funny the small things we remember!

If you remember the date or day and time I may be able to reference old records and get a registration and type.

sparrowcar

Going by your date I would say Spanair as they had extensive charters at that time around Europe from DUB.

I thought maybe it was Air Dubrovnik but they only operated in 2005+.

Aviajet were not operating in 2003 to my knowledge.

Other possibilities at that time for a tail step aircraft were Alitalia or SAS.

stopthepanic

sparrowcar wrote: »

Going by your date I would say Spanair as they had extensive charters at that time around Europe from DUB.

I thought maybe it was Air Dubrovnik but they only operated in 2005+.

Aviajet were not operating in 2003 to my knowledge.

Other possibilities at that time for a tail step aircraft were Alitalia or SAS.

the link in my post is Aviajet landing on 10/08/03
http://www.jetphotos.net/photo/240000

sparrowcar

stopthepanic wrote: »

the link in my post is Aviajet landing on 10/08/03
http://www.jetphotos.net/photo/240000

Ok I'm surprised by that. I worked on behalf of that airline at the time and I didn't think they were around till later 2004-2005 onwards.

sparrowcar

On a similar note does anyone remember the short lived Jetgreen airlines with their 757.
Also EUjet operating 6 x F100's.
I'm laughing here in work looking through old shift logs. The good old days where anyone with a bit of cash could set up an airline.

irlrobins

stopthepanic wrote: »

If you remember the date or day and time I may be able to reference old records and get a registration and type.

I'm going have to do some searching through the records. It was definitely Oct 2003, need to figure out the date

Irish Steve

sparrowcar wrote: »

On a similar note does anyone remember the short lived Jetgreen airlines with their 757.
Also EUjet operating 6 x F100's.
I'm laughing here in work looking through old shift logs. The good old days where anyone with a bit of cash could set up an airline.

The most significant thing I remember about the F70 & F100 was that we had one ramp agent who couldn't be assigned to them, he was too big to get into the back hold to load or unload bags from it! Then there were the TU 154's, and it was always a case of hunt the push back bar, Aeroflot had one on station, but it was an evil thing in terms of length and weight, and had at some stage been damaged, so wasn't the best of things to try and tow to the stand, so we had to hope that the airline had a bar on the aircraft, but to do that, it was a much shorter one, and most of the "european" tugs wouldn't fit under the nose, so they had to be reversed off stand rather than pushed, which was "Interesting" to watch, as very few of the lead agents could cope with that concept, so some of the routes off stand were not exactly along the line that they were supposed to follow.

As for the big Antonov, that was another story for another day!

Ahhh, memories.

sparrowcar

Irish Steve wrote: »

The most significant thing I remember about the F70 & F100 was that we had one ramp agent who couldn't be assigned to them, he was too big to get into the back hold to load or unload bags from it! Then there were the TU 154's, and it was always a case of hunt the push back bar, Aeroflot had one on station, but it was an evil thing in terms of length and weight, and had at some stage been damaged, so wasn't the best of things to try and tow to the stand, so we had to hope that the airline had a bar on the aircraft, but to do that, it was a much shorter one, and most of the "european" tugs wouldn't fit under the nose, so they had to be reversed off stand rather than pushed, which was "Interesting" to watch, as very few of the lead agents could cope with that concept, so some of the routes off stand were not exactly along the line that they were supposed to follow.

As for the big Antonov, that was another story for another day!

Ahhh, memories.

A few of us went on the lash with the AN124 engineers years ago.. Those boyos could drink!

irlrobins

stopthepanic wrote: »

If you remember the date or day and time I may be able to reference old records and get a registration and type.

So I had an idea to look in my old passport for an entry stamp for Dubrovnik and there it was. So the date of flight was 4th Oct 2003.

stopthepanic

ok then!

On 04/10/03 there were 7 aircraft that operated with tail stairs, all MD80 variants.

I can't see the destination in the records so a process of elimination is required.

2 were Alitalia...most likely to italy
1 was Spanair...most likely spanish holiday charter
1 Finnair...helsinki
1 SAS....to scandinavia
1 operated as EI583..EI hire in to Malaga.
and last but not least.......
LF5563 (Aviajet/Nordic Airlink) reg SE-RDL
the clincher would be if you remember boarding through the gates in Pier A (now 200's) as that's were it left from.

Here's the same aircraft leaving Lisbon in September of the same year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79s5EU4kcks

sparrowcar

stopthepanic wrote: »

ok then!

On 04/10/03 there were 7 aircraft that operated with tail stairs, all MD80 variants.

I can't see the destination in the records so a process of elimination is required.

2 were Alitalia...most likely to italy
1 was Spanair...most likely spanish holiday charter
1 Finnair...helsinki
1 SAS....to scandinavia
1 operated as EI583..EI hire in to Malaga.
and last but not least.......
LF5563 (Aviajet/Nordic Airlink) reg SE-RDL
the clincher would be if you remember boarding through the gates in Pier A (now 200's) as that's were it left from.

Here's the same aircraft leaving Lisbon in September of the same year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79s5EU4kcks

Either this is excellent dedication to a thread or you've way to much time on your hands in work. You certainly don't work where i do cause we're getting hammered today!

Growler!!!

Rear stairs you say,
Shannon based airline?

AB Airlines BAC-111 might be your man:D

irlrobins

stopthepanic wrote: »

ok then!

On 04/10/03 there were 7 aircraft that operated with tail stairs, all MD80 variants.

I can't see the destination in the records so a process of elimination is required.

2 were Alitalia...most likely to italy
1 was Spanair...most likely spanish holiday charter
1 Finnair...helsinki
1 SAS....to scandinavia
1 operated as EI583..EI hire in to Malaga.
and last but not least.......
LF5563 (Aviajet/Nordic Airlink) reg SE-RDL
the clincher would be if you remember boarding through the gates in Pier A (now 200's) as that's were it left from.

Here's the same aircraft leaving Lisbon in September of the same year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79s5EU4kcks

Excellent work! I think the last one looks a hit. Def exited from Pier A, walked out on apron to the plane and boarded by the tail.

irlrobins

Growler!!! wrote: »

Rear stairs you say,
Shannon based airline?

AB Airlines BAC-111 might be your man:D

No, def MD-80 as it had the galley on the port side at the rear.

stopthepanic

That's her alright then, the others were all Pier B and Pier C.

stopthepanic

sparrowcar wrote: »

Either this is excellent dedication to a thread or you've way to much time on your hands in work. You certainly don't work where i do cause we're getting hammered today!

Once I had the date, the info was easy to filter down.

p.s. stop posting here and get back to work!:)

LiamaDelta

Shannon757 wrote: »

Wonder why they went out of business? :rolleyes:

On a side note they were also the crowd that landed in the Army base in Ballykelly rather than Derry/Londonderry City airport while operating for Ryanair!!

Locker10a

LiamaDelta wrote: »

On a side note they were also the crowd that landed in the Army base in Ballykelly rather than Derry/Londonderry City airport while operating for Ryanair!!

Was that not EirJet?

Pat Dunne

Locker10a wrote: »

Was that not EirJet?

You're spot on.

Shannon757

Locker10a wrote: »

Was that not EirJet?

I thought he was talking about Eirjet?

Growler!!!

Shannon757 wrote: »

I thought he was talking about Eirjet?

So did I.