Air Inter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Air Inter was France's foremost domestic airline as well as the largest scheduled domestic carrier in Europe.

Air Inter was officially incorporated on November 12, 1954. The newly formed airline operated its first commercial flight between Paris and Strasbourg on March 16, 1958. However, it was not until 1960 that the airline commenced regular commercial air services.^[1]

The company established its main operational and engineering base at Paris Orly Airport, where its flights were concentrated at Orly Ouest, Orly Airport's West Terminal.

Air Inter was founded as a semi-public entity with the aim of providing an efficient domestic air transport network, at the lowest possible cost. Its financial backers included a number of prominent French public and private sector transport businesses engaged in road, rail and air transport, as well as the major French banks.^[2]

Air France and SNCF, the state-owned French railway company, were Air Inter's two largest public sector shareholders, each holding a 24% stake in the airline. UTA was its largest private sector investor. (UTA initially held a 15% minority stake in Air Inter. UTA subsequently increased its shareholding to about 36%, thereby becoming the largest single shareholder.)^[1]

On January 12, 1990 Air Inter, along with UTA and Air France itself, became part of an enlarged Air France group, which in turn became a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupe Air France. Air Inter changed its name to Air France Europe following its merger with Air France and UTA.

On April 1, 1997 it was completely absorbed into Air France. On that day the firm ceased to exist as a separate legal entity within Groupe Air France.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Aircraft operated 2 Incidents and accidents 3 Code Data 4 Related content 5 Notes 6 External links/References

[edit] History

On February 23, 1960 France's Ministry of Public Works and Transport decided to transfer Air France's domestic monopoly to Air Inter. This decision provided the impetus for Air Inter to commence regular scheduled services within metropolitan France, as well as between the French mainland and the island of Corsica.^[1] Though technically a private sector company because of its limited liability status, Air Inter was compelled to operate a number of unprofitable regional domestic routes as well to justify keeping its domestic monopoly on the profitable trunk routes from Paris.^[2]

Air Inter primarily operated high-frequency scheduled internal flights radiating from its Paris Orly base to all major cities in metropolitan France, i.e. principally Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Mulhouse. Following the opening of the new Charles de Gaulle Airport near the northern Paris suburb of Roissy-en-France and the gradual transfer of the bulk of Air France's international operations from Orly to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle from 1974 onwards, as well as the simultaneous transfer of UTA's entire Le Bourget-based operation to that airport, Air Inter began serving these routes from Charles de Gaulle as well (with the exception of Nice) to feed domestic passengers into those airlines' international networks.

Air Inter also linked its Orly base with a number of additional second and third tier provincial French towns as well as with all three commercial airports on the island of Corsica (Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi). The airline furthermore operated a number of regional domestic scheduled routes between major French cities that completely bypassed Paris as well as between cities other than Paris and Corsica.

Many of Air Inter's scheduled routes serving third tier provincial towns were contracted out to TAT.

Prior to the liberalisation of the EU's internal air transport market during the early 1990s, Air Inter was one of the four main pillars of the French air transport industry, along with Air France, UTA and TAT.

During that period Air Inter had a large share of the French domestic air transport market. It was the only airline plying most of the domestic trunk routes within metropolitan France on a regular scheduled basis, especially from and to Paris. ^[3] The only exceptions were Paris-Nice and Paris-Basle/Mulhouse. Air Inter's flights between Paris Orly and Nice competed indirectly with Air France's Paris Charles de Gaulle-Nice flights. Air Inter competed head-on with Swissair, the former Swiss flag carrier, between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Basle/Mulhouse. (The main difference between the competing Air Inter and Swissair services on this route was that the former's passengers had to enter/leave the terminal building at Basle/Mulhouse Airport through the domestic channel that connected the airport to the French city of Mulhouse, whereas the latter's passengers needed to enter/leave the terminal through the international channel that linked the airport with the Swiss city of Basle. For this reason, Air Inter's flights were categorised as domestic while Swissair's were categorised as international.) In addition, UTA had limited domestic traffic rights to carry passengers, cargo and mail on the internal legs of its long-haul services, i.e. between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Lyon, Marseille, Nice as well as Bordeaux, respectively. However, these flights were far too infrequent to pose a serious competitive threat to Air Inter.

SNCF, one of Air Inter's two largest public sector shareholders, was also the company's main competitor on domestic trunk routes inside metropolitan France. This competition intensified when SNCF began introducing high-speed, high-frequency Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV) train services on purpose-built tracks from 1981 onwards. The launch of TGV services between Paris and Lyon, one of Air Inter's busiest as well as shortest domestic trunk routes, in 1981 led to a reduction in frequency as well as the introduction of smaller aircraft on Air Inter's competing air service.

The only other domestic air routes on which Air Inter competed with Air France in the pre-liberalisation era were the routes linking the French mainland with Corsica.

Air Inter passenger figures grew steadily to a peak of 21 million (actually beating Air France one year) on its domestic scheduled network, which established the firm as the largest scheduled domestic airline in Europe.

Air Inter was also one of the few European ultra short-haul, mainline scheduled operators that managed to be profitable most of the time throughout its existence and in many ways were the forerunners of todays low cost carriers. Fares were reasonable in comparison to equivalent domestic flights elsewhere in Europe (even where competition existed) & to SNCF train services, no assigned seating, short turnarounds (35mins for a full 314 seat A300 was commonplace), no seat allocation, no frills service on board & minimum crewing levels. The businessman was not forgotten - frequent service and good timekeeping kept many business passengers off the rails, along with 2 basic, but effective loyalty programmes (Carte d'abonnement & Horaires Confort). Air Inter was also a pioneer of Category 3 all weather landings & started operating to Cat 3 minima with the Caravelle fleet - upgrading & refining the technology with enahanced "Head Up Display" systems on Mercure & A320 fleets

On January 1, 1995 Air Inter lost its monopoly on the main domestic trunk routes from Paris Orly. From that day onwards, any EU-based rival was free to offer competitive services on these routes, without restrictions on capacity, frequency or fares.^[4]

The subsequent sale of controlling stakes in Air Inter and UTA to Air France, as well as the eventual integration of both of the former into the latter, was part of a French government plan to create a unified, national carrier with the economies of scale and global reach to counter potential threats resulting from the liberalisation of the EU's internal air transport market.^[5]

[edit] Aircraft operated

Listed below are the main aircraft types that were part of Air Inter's fleet at one point or another throughout its 37-years of continuous operations:

• Aérospatiale Caravelle III series/12 series ("Super 12")
• Airbus A300 B2/B4 series
• Airbus A320 100/200 series
• Airbus A321
• Airbus A330 300 series
• Dassault Mercure
• Douglas DC-3
• Fokker F-27 "Friendship" 500 series
• Fokker F100
• Vickers Viscount 700 series.

Air Inter entered the jet age with the Caravelle III.

Air Inter was an early operator of the Airbus A300, the European aircraft manufacturer's first commercial jetliner and the airline's first widebodied aircraft type and the fleet reached 22 aircraft at its peak.

Air Inter was also a launch customer for both the Dassault Mercure, the French answer to the Boeing 737, as well as the Airbus A320 (eventually building up a fleet of 33 of the 320 variant alone), being the only airline customer in the world for the former and joint launch customer with Air France and British Caledonian/British Airways for the latter.

The Mercure entered commercial airline service with Air Inter in 1975. (In addition to the ten aircraft that formed part of Air Inter's original order for the Mercure, the airline had the aircraft's prototype/ F-BTMD converted to airline standard as well. This aircraft subsequently joined the airline's fleet, increasing the company's Mercure sub-fleet to eleven.) It was withdrawn from service in 1995, after 20 years' uninterrupted service.

The A320 entered service with Air Inter in 1988.

The A330 was the last aircraft type to join the Air Inter fleet in 1994.

[edit] Incidents and accidents

There were twelve recorded incidents/accidents involving Air Inter aircraft throughout the airline's 37 years of uninterrupted commercial operations, three of which were fatal. One of the other nine reported incidents involved hijacking an aircraft, which resulted in the loss of one of the occupants' lives.^[6]

The airline's three fatal accidents are listed below:

On August 12, 1963 a Vickers Viscount 708 (registration F-BGNV)[1] operating a scheduled flight from Lille to Lyon crashed while holding momentarily over Tramoyes at FL30 on the instructions of Lyon ATC, resulting in the deaths of the aircraft's 20 occupants (four crew members and 16 passengers) as well as one person on the ground. A severe storm in the area at that time forced the flight deck crew to request ATC's permission to descend to FL25. In response to its request, the crew received clearance for a straight-in approach to Lyon Bron Airport's runway 17. Eyewitnesses on the ground reported seeing the aircraft flying very low in an easterly direction in the heart of the storm. The aircraft subsequently struck trees, the roof of a farmhouse and a telephone pole before coming to rest in a field. The accident investigation board cited exceptionally bad weather conditions in the area where the aircraft was instructed to hold, as well as a possibility of a flash of lightning dazzling the crew and causing temporary blindness or appreciably incapacitating both pilots, as probable causes of the accident.^[7]

On October 27, 1972 a Vickers Viscount 724 (registration F-BMCH)[2] operating a scheduled night time flight from Lyon to Clermont-Ferrand crashed into the Pic du Picon mountain 44km east of Clermont-Ferrand Airport at a height of 1,000ft killing 60 of the aircraft's 68 occupants, including all five crew members and 55 of the 63 passengers. The accident was caused by the flight deck crew's failure to notice that their plane's radio compass had shifted 180 degrees, most likely as a result of electrical discharges in the rainfall blocking the signals emitted by Clermont-Ferrand's NDB, while being instructed to fly a holding pattern prior to receiving clearance to descend to 3,600 ft. This in turn resulted in the crew initiating their descent too early, which set the aircraft on a collision course with the mountain in its vicinity.^[8]

On January 20, 1992 an A320-111 (registration F-GGED)[3] crashed into a high ridge near Mount Sainte-Odile in the Vosges mountains while on final approach to Strasbourg at the end of a scheduled flight from Lyon. This accident resulted in the deaths of 87 of the aircraft's occupants (five crew members, 82 passengers), which made it the worst accident in the company's history. In addition to these fatalities, there were also six survivors (one crew member, five passengers). The accident was caused by the aircraft's wrongly programmed Flight Control Unit (FCU), as a consequence of the crew's failure to notice that the FCU was in [incorrect] vertical speed mode when programming the angle of descent (-3.3 [3.3 degrees]). The resulting excessive rate of descent (3,300 ft./minute instead of 800 ft./minute) took the aircraft below its minimum safe altitude. This in turn resulted in the aircraft striking trees and impacting a 2,710 ft. high ridge in the cloud-covered Vosges mountains. </ref>

[edit] Code Data

• IATA Code: IT
• ICAO Code: ITF
• Callsign: Air Inter

[edit] Related content

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links/References

• FT.com/Business Life, The Monday Interview, 30 September 2007 - Pilot who found the right trajectory
• M.R. Golder, The Changing Nature of French Dirigisme - A Case Study of Air France, St. Edmunds Hall, Oxford. Thesis submitted at Trinity College, 1997
• Air France (Airline, France)
• Air Inter at the Aviation Safety Network Database
• Air Inter DC-3 Museum Pictures
• Air Inter F-27-500 on a visit to Berlin Tegel on April 9, 1978
• Air Inter Dassault Mercure 100 at Basle/Mulhouse Euro Airport during August 1985
• Air Inter Aerospatiale SE-210 Caravelle 12 at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport on October 16, 1990
• Air Inter A300 B2-1C departing Palma de Mallorca Son San Juan Airport on August 5, 1993
• Air Inter A330-301 at Paris Orly Airport on September 14, 1993
• Air Inter F100 at Madrid Barajas Airport on September 10, 1995
• Air Inter timetable images
• Air Inter uniform images, 1990s
• "Flight International" . Reed Business Information. ISSN 0015-3710.  (various backdated issues relating to Air Inter, 1960-1997)
• "OAG Flight Guide Worldwide" . OAG Worldwide. ISSN 1466-8718.  (various backdated issues relating to Air Inter scheduled flight information, 1960-1997)

v • d • e Lists relating to aviation General Timeline of aviation · Aircraft (manufacturers) · Aircraft engines (manufacturers) · Airports · Airlines Military Air forces · Aircraft weapons · Missiles · Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) · Experimental aircraft Accidents/incidents General · Military · Commercial (airliners) · Deaths Records Airspeed · Distance · Altitude · Endurance · Most-produced aircraft