Package tour operator Horizon Travel forms this carrier at East Midland Airport, Castle Donington, in Derbyshire on November 28, 1978, to provide charter and inclusive-tour flights to south European and Middle East destinations. With four Boeing 737-2T5s, Chairman Robert Muck-leston’s new entrant opens flight operations in March 1980; the first service is an East Midland-Pisa charter.
A total of 369,000 passengers are carried on the year.
Passenger boardings skyrocket 61.4% in 1981 to 860,000 as 2 more B-737-2T5s are acquired; a fifth B-737-2T5 is added in 1982, the same year Orion becomes the first non-U. S. customer to order the B-737-300, with a requisition for five of the type.
Bookings increase 9% to 920,000, primarily on inclusive-tour flights to European and North African destinations, which generates a 21.2% increase in employees to 400.
The employee population is boosted 18.4% in 1983 to 450 and a B-737 simulator is ordered for the carrier’s main base facility.
Passenger boardings pass the million-mark in annual bookings for the first time, as tour traffic increases 11% to 1,030,000. Airline employment reaches 450 and 3 more B-737-2T5s are delivered.
Enplanements for 1984 jump 28.2% to 1.2 million.
Despite the arrival of 4 B-737-3T5s in 1985, bookings for the 510-employee, all-737 operator fall off slightly to 1.06 million.
Thirty new employees are hired in 1986 and the fleet includes 5 B-737-2T5s and 4 B-737-3T5s. An order remains outstanding for 1 B-737-3T5, but 2 Airbus Industrie A300B2-1Cs, purchased from Deutsche Lufthansa, A. G. for $60 million, arrive in April and May, beginning operations from London (LGW) and Manchester.
With CAA authority, Orion begins its first scheduled services from London (LGW) to Almeria, Birmingham to Palma, Manchester to Alicante, and East Midlands to Malaga and Palma. Charter and inclusive-tour operations continue from various U. K. airports to destinations in southern Europe, the Mediterranean, and North Africa. A new subsidiary, Orion Flight Training, Ltd., is now established in cooperation with Singer Link-Miles.
Passenger boardings increase 26.4% to 1,340,000, with a record 87% load factor.
The workforce is increased by 14.8% in 1987 to 620. In the spring, the Bass Group of leisure and hotels makes an offer for Horizon and its subsidiaries, including Orion.
Revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) operated accelerate 19% to 1.79 million.
The company is merged with Britannia Airways, Ltd. in August 1988 when Britannia’s parent, Thomson Travel Group, purchases Orion’s parent.
ORION AIRWAYS (ORION SERVICIOS AEREOS, S. A.): 1342 Amenbar, Buenos Aires, 1426, Argentina; Phone 54 (1) 784-3949; Fax 54 (1) 783-2457; Year Founded 1999. Orion is established by Alfredo Martinez at Buenos Aires Aeroparque Jorge Newbery in 1999 to offer local passenger charters. Revenue flights begin and continue with a single Let L-410UVP.
ORLANDO AIRWAYS. See FLORIDAAIRWAYS
ORVIS NELSON AIR TRANSPORT. See TRANSOCEAN AIR LINES
ORYX AVIATION (PTY.), LTD.: South West Africa (1956-1959).
Oryx is set up at Eros Airport at Windhoek, South West Africa, in 1956 to provide smallplane charters to domestic destinations. Flights continue until March 1959, when the company is merged with South West Air Transport (Pty.), Ltd. to form Suidwes Lugdiens (Pty.), Ltd.
OSPREY WINGS, LTD.: P. O. Box 419, La Ronge, Saskatchewan, S0J 1L0, Canada; Phone (306) 635-2112; Fax (306) 635-2134; Year Founded 1995. OW is set up at La Ronge by Garry Thompson in 1995 to offer scheduled third-level flights to local destinations. Revenue flights begin with a single de Havilland Canada DHC-6-200 Twin Otter.
Flights continue in 1996-2000, during which years the company also operates 1 Cessna 185, 1 DHC-2 Beaver, and 3 DHC-3 Otters.
OSTERMAN AIR CHARTER, A. B. See INTERNORD, A. B.
OSTERMAN HELICOPTER, A. B.: PL 2005, Save Airport, Gote-borg, S-42373, Sweden; Phone 46 (31) 926000; Fax 46 (31) 926621; Http://www. ostermanhelicopter. se; Year Founded 1948. One of, if not
The, oldest helicopter companies in the world, Osterman is established at Stockholm in 1948 to operate mail service around the archipelago. Over the next 52 years, the company provides all manner of helicopter work, including passenger and cargo charters. Although the company’s major geographic area of operations is in Sweden, qualified assignments are also carried out in Norway, Finland, and Germany.
Among the services provided are air ambulance flights on behalf of the Stockholm county council and the county council in Jamtland, marine surveys and maintenance transport for the National Swedish Administration of Shipping and Navigation, topographical measurements and map production plus line inspection for power companies, including Vattenfall and Sydkraft. Photographic and film flights are made for large media companies while aerial liming of land areas to fight acidity is also performed. Support is also contracted on behalf of construction projects of different sizes and complexities.
By 1999-2000, General Manager Lennart Pihl oversees the work of 80 employees and the services provided by 2 each Bell 206B Je-tRangers, Bell 206L LongRangers, Schweizer 300Cs, Bell 212s, 1 Eurocopter SA 365N Dauphin, 1 BK-117, and 3 each Eurocopter AS 350B1 and AS 350B2. On those occasions when jobs require greater lif-ing and loading capacity than these helicopters can provide, the carrier leases a Mil Mi-26 from Russia.
Turnover in the former year reaches Skr 130 million. During the latter year, the Eurocopter EC-120, the world’s quietest helicopter, is added to the fleet. Heliflyg, A. B. is purchased and operated as a subsidiary.
OSTFRIESISCHE LUFTDIENST, GmbH. See FRISIA LUFT-VERKEHR NORDDEICH, GmbH.
OSTERREICHISCHE LUFTVERKEHRS, A. G. (OLAG): Austria (1923-1939). On May 3, 1923, local banking and railway officials meeting at Vienna in association with Junkers Luftverkehr, A. G. found this carrier to provide flights between the Austrian capital and Munich. The company is provided with 2 float-equipped Junkers F-13s, christened Taube and Shieglitz. Meanwhile, in response to stiffening competition with the Lloyd Luftdienst, GmbH., Junkers Luftverkehr, A. G. has begun to identify members for a countering confederation. On May 14, the Trans-Europa Union is formed; simultaneously, Junkers assumes interest in OLAG, bringing it into the group. The F-13s initiate flight operations the same day, stretching the initially planned route down the Danube to Budapest.
Following the formation of Deutsche Luft Hansa, A. G. (DLH) on
January 6, 1926, OLAG, like other foreign Junkers group components, is allowed to go its own way. The Austrian carrier, nevertheless, maintains a close affiliation with its former German parent, flying joint operations on the Berlin-Vienna via Prague route, as well as to Budapest.
In 1927-1929, frequencies are started to Milan via Innsbruck, to Venice via Klagenfurt, and to Belgrade via Graz. Passenger boardings increase during the decade and in 1930 the carrier enjoys some 8,000 bookings. The fleet, too, is built up and by 1931 it comprises 8 F-13s, 2 G.23s, and 1 G.31.
The route system remains stable during the 1930s and the only equipment upgrade is the introduction of the ubiquitous Junkers Ju-52/3m. On January 1, 1939, OLAG is absorbed into DLH.
OSTERREICHISCHE LUFTVERKEHRS, A/G. See also AUSTRIAN AIRLINES, A. G.
OTA (ORGANIZACOES DE TRANSPORTES AEREOS). See COMAG
OTONABEE AIRWAYS, LTD. See AIR ATONABEE, LTD.
OUT ISLAND AIRWAYS, LTD. See BAHAMASAIR, LTD.
OVERLAND AIRWAYS: United States (1931). Organized at San Francisco in the spring of 1931, Overland is equipped with a Travel Air 6000, which is employed to launch scheduled passenger flights to the state capital at Sacramento in May. Without a mail contract, traffic is insufficient to generate the revenues required to operate beyond July.
OVERNIGHT CARGO, LTD.: Nigeria/United Kingdom (19931995). Overnight Cargo is founded in the summer of 1993 by a Lagos concern and Vital Link Aviation Consultants, Ltd. of the U. K. to provide overnight cargo and express charter services, largely on behalf of other airlines, such as Federal Express. Revenue flights commence from a base at Ostend, Belgium, in September with a single Boeing 707-351C leased from Buffalo Airways. The principal route is flown back and forth from Belgium to Nigeria.
Operations continue apace in 1994 and in the spring the fleet is enhanced by the addition of a leased Douglas DC-8-55F from Flash Airlines, Ltd. In September, a DC-8-55F is purchased from Kabo Air Cargo, Ltd.
The ex-Kabo machine is sold to MK Airlines, Ltd. in the U. K. in April 1995. The company shuts its doors shortly thereafter.
World History
