Air Atlantique: Қанатты тарихы мен мұрасы

the French airline of the same name

Air Atlantique was an airline based at Coventry Airport operating a number of classic aircraft, both for passenger operation and for cargo transportation. They operated a large fleet of Douglas DC 3 aircraft alongside several Douglas DC 6 and Lockheed Electra aircraft. Originally an air taxi operator, the group diversified into chartered and scheduled passenger and freight operations, as well as oil spill response, aerial survey, and pleasure flights through various subsidiaries. The group was broken up as founder Mike Collett approached retirement with the freight arm becoming Atlantic Airlines and the aerial survey work continuing as RVL Aviation. Many of the remaining classic aircraft were donated to Classic Flight (Classic Air Force) for display at air shows.

The Air Atlantique Group was founded in 1969 under the name of General Aviation Services, based in Jersey, Channel Islands. Initially operating as an aircraft sales and distribution business, the company received an Air Operator's Certificate in 1971 and began air taxi operations with Cessna 310 and Cessna 336 aircraft. The Air Atlantique name was adopted in June 1977 when freight charter flights were launched with Douglas DC 3 aircraft. It was thought the name would both appeal to the French speaking population of Jersey and appear near the top alphabetically in the Yellow Pages. Freight charter operations commenced on 19 July 1977 with the first flight transporting lobsters from Jersey to Morlaix. Between 1981 and 1982 the company purchased additional DC 3s and was awarded a lucrative postal contract on behalf of Royal Mail. A three year aerial survey contract was also awarded to Air Atlantique by the Ordnance Survey which led to the establishment of the Atlantic Surveys subsidiary. An engineering base was set up in the former British United Airways hangar at Blackpool airport which became the main UK operating base. Three Dakotas stationed at Blackpool operated newspaper flights to Belfast and the Isle of Man, with other aircraft operating nightly mail flights on the Glasgow East Midlands Luton and Newcastle Liverpool runs. Air Atlantique was awarded a five year maritime pollution control contract by the UK Department of Transport in 1987. The original terms of the contract required seven spray equipped DC 3s to be kept on standby although this was later revised down to two. Nevertheless, this contract required a significant expansion of the fleet. The first call out for Air Atlantique was the Piper Alpha disaster on 6 July 1988. Between then and the late 1990s, it expanded its operations to create pilot training facilities, aircraft engineering shops, survey and aerial reconnaissance work and other aviation related activities. In 1987 it formed Atlantic Flight Training with the acquisition of two Cessna 310 aircraft and the later addition of seven Cessna 152 aircraft for flight training. The Atlantic Reconnaissance subsidiary was formed in 1988 to look after the pollution control work alongside other airborne remote sensing, survey, and patrol contracts. In 1994 it was awarded a contract with US based Marine Oil Spill Response Corporation to operate a Shorts 360 aircraft in a surveillance role. The company was subject to a management buyout in 2007 and moved to a new East Midlands Airport base as RVL Aviation in 2010. CFS was spun off as an independent company in 2007. Other subsidiaries included Atlantic Aeroengineering which provided maintenance and special mission modification services to the group from the Coventry base. A short lived Irish operation, Aer Atlantic, offered ad hoc cargo and passenger services using the Shorts 360 aircraft which had returned from operations with Atlantic Reconnaissance in the USA. Scheduled passenger services between Southampton and the Channel Islands began in 1988 using a leased Hawker Siddeley HS 748 aircraft. Flights operated five times a day with fares of £29 each way; although initially the service was not a success, incurring losses of £750,000 in the first year of operation in the face of stiff competition. The HS 748 was returned to the lessor in March 1989 and the Southhampton route dropped. From 1990, scheduled services were operated under the brand Air Corbiere. A Fairchild Metro III was purchased in 1992 to operate alongside the Cessna 406s. The Metro was the only example of the type on the UK aircraft register. Scheduled services, which ended in 1994, included daily flights linking Coventry Gloucester, Jersey/Guernsey to Rennes, and Liverpool to the Channel Islands. In 1991, on account of two pollution control DC 3s being based at Inverness Airport, the group founded Air Alba as a flight training school based at the airport. It was renamed Highland Airways in February 1997. The airline expanded into freight and passenger operations as well as contract work for the oil industry and the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency. Highland Airways was subject to a management buyout in 2007. In late 1993, the group was restructured with the passenger operations of Air Atlantique/Air Corbiere combined under the name Atlantic Airways. The cargo operations of Atlantic Air Transport became Atlantic Cargo. The group was restructured again in 1998 with all passenger and cargo operations reorganised into a new unit called Atlantic Airlines. A new livery was introduced featuring a dark black fuselage with green stripes. As with the previous rebranding, all non airline operations including DC 3 work retained the Air Atlantique name. From May 2006 to January 2007, Atlantic Express operated a scheduled route between Jersey and Stansted. The main trading activities of Atlantic Airlines were subject to a management buy out in July 2004 which saw all Lockheed L 188 Electra cargo operations transfer to an independent company, Atlantic Airlines. Following the divestment of most subsidiaries, Air Atlantique later operated a number of historic aircraft as the Classic Air Force. Pleasure flights of the DC 3 on the Atlantique air operator's certificate ceased in the summer of 2008 owing to new safety regulations which required extensive modification of the airframes which proved uneconomical.

The first DC 3, G ANAF, was purchased from West Country Aviation in 1977 for £72,000. G ANAF required extensive restoration so a second DC 3, G AMCA was leased from Fairey Aviation and became the first DC 3 to enter service. G AMCA was then also purchased outright for £45,000 later that year. Between 1981 and 1982, eight further DC 3s were purchased although two were sold on within a month, bringing the total Dakota fleet to eight aircraft by 1982. In 1987, G AMCA was removed from freight work and flown to Greybull, Wyoming for conversion to spray configuration by Hawkins & Powers. Air Atlantique then converted a second DC 3, G AMHJ, which was re acquired having been sold off with the postal contract two years earlier. Atlantic Flight Training began operations with two Cessna 310 aircraft, G BODY and G SOUL, which were used as twin engine and instrument training aircraft. In 1988 the company fleet swelled in size with the arrival of 7 Cessna 152′s in shipping containers, these being registered as G HART (Tail Wheel conversion), G BPBG, G BPBH, G BPBI, G BPBJ, G BPBK and G BPBL with BH/I/J/K & L all being sold in 1990. The first aircraft, G LOFA, was retired in 1998 bringing the operational fleet to seven. At a cost of $500,000 per aircraft, Air Atlantique modified each Electra for two crew operation and installed new mode S transponders, TCAS, electrical generators, and 8.33kHz capable radios in order to meet new regulatory requirements. The first ATR 42 300, G IONA, joined the Atlantique fleet in December 2002. It operated for various subsidiaries within the group including Highland Airways and Atlantic Express and was used by the Liberal Democrats during the 2005 UK General Election. Two further ATR 42 300s, G RHUM and G DRFC, were delivered in 2004 and 2005. A larger ATR 72 200, G HERM, joined the fleet in October 2005.