AERIAL TRAFFIC COMPANY, A. G. See AERO ASSOCIATION LUCERNE
AERIAL TRANSIT COMPANY: United States (1984-1994). ATC is
Established by Charles A. Lawson at Miami (MIA) in late 1984 to provide scheduled all-cargo services to destinations in the southeast U. S. and Latin America, especially Mexico and Central America.
Outfitted with 1 Curtiss C-46A and 3 Douglas DC-6As, the 38-employee company begins revenue services in early 1985. A total of 7.3 million FTKs are flown by late December. Revenues total $2.49 million, costs are held to $2.42 million, and operating income of $66,000 is achieved. Net gain is an identical $66,000.
Three workers are dismissed in 1986; however, cargo climbs 10.8% to 8.13 million FTKs. Revenues ascend 3.1% to $2.57 million, expenses jump 7.3% to $2.6 million, and the operating loss is $31,980. Net profit, on the other hand, rises to $140,447.
Two new employees are hired in 1987 and the fleet is increased by the addition of two DC-6BFs, which replace the Curtiss Commandos. Freight swells by 10.3% to 8.97 million FTKs. Although revenues advance by 13.2% to $2.9 million, costs, up 16.4% to $3.03 million, again exceed income. The operating loss accelerates to $121,314.
The payroll increases by 24.3% in 1988 to 46 and the fleet now includes 3 DC-6As and 2 DC-6BFs.
Cargo advances by 37.4% to 11.3 million FTKs. Revenues increase 50.2% to $4.369 million, but expenses climb 44.2% to exactly the same figure. There is neither operating nor net gain or loss.
Another DC-6B joins the fleet in 1989 and helps to push freight traffic up by 14.1% to 12.89 million FTKs. Revenues climb 24.1% to $5.42 million, but costs jump 33.1% to $5.81 million. The resulting losses, both operating and net, are $395,000 each.
The 80-employee company has a dismal 1990. While climbing away from Guatemala City on May 4 a DC-6BF with 3 crew loses power and crashes; all aboard the freighter are killed, along with 16 people on the ground.
Cargo falls 18.6% to 11.23 million FTKs.
The workforce is cut by 42.5% in 1991 to 46 and 1 DC-6B is withdrawn. Freight traffic is down again, by 51.1%, to 5.21 million FTKs.
Recession cuts deeply into the Miami-based cargo operator’s 1992 business. Cargo plunges 34.9% to 3.38 million FTKs. Although revenues total $6.47 million, expenses lead to losses: $275,909 (operating) and $335,539 (net).
The two-plane airline suffers a horrific 1993 as freight free falls downward 73.8% to only 887,680 FTKs. It releases no figures and goes out of business in 1994.
AERIAL TRANSPORT COMPANY OF SIAM, LTD.: Thailand (1930-1941). After nine years of successful pioneering domestic flights by the Royal Aeronautical Air Service of the Siam Army, the monarch of Siam orders creation of a civil national airline and release of the military for defense matters.
After consultations with a series of experts (including several from KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines, N. V.), which agrees to make a stop at Bangkok), and former U. S. Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger, the minister of finance forms the Aerial Transport Company of Siam, Ltd. at Bangkok on July 7, 1930. The government’s fiscal department controls the new, largely paper, company for a year until it can be taken over by officials from the office of HRH Prince Purachatra, Minister of Commerce and Communications, on July 13, 1931.
Equipped with four de Havilland DH 80A Puss Moths, ATCS inaugurates twice-weekly revenue services on August 24 from the railhead at Nakhon Rachasima north of Bangkok over the previous routes of the Army service. Stops include Roi-Et, Ubon Rachasima, Khonkaen, Udorn, and Nong Khai.
Services continue to grow during the next decade. Working in cooperation with the nation’s railways, the small airline suffers only one fatal accident, the loss of a Puss Moth with all aboard on June 22, 1933.
The aircraft is replaced with a Fairchild Model 24 cabin plane, which foreshadows the arrival of six Fairchild Model 24Js in late 1938 into early 1939.
The new American-made aircraft inaugurate flights over three new routes during the company’s final three years. These include service from Surat Thani to the future tourist center, the island of Phuket, as well as flights from Khon Kaen to Vientiane in Laos and from Nakhon Sawan to Chiangmai via Tak.
When Japan militarily invades Southeast Asia after December 7, 1941, ATCS ends. In just over nine years of operations, the carrier has transported a total of 700 passengers, 18,000 kg. of freight, and 130,000 kg. of mail.
AERIE AIRLINES: United States (1971-1979). Aerie is established by Clyde Cook at Clarksville, Tennessee, in the spring of 1971 to provide scheduled daily roundtrips to Nashville and Chattanooga. Employing first 1 and then 2 Beech 18s, revenue frequencies are inaugurated in August, with passengers largely consisting of soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division stationed at nearby Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
Services continue apace over the next three years, during which period the company initiates roundtrip frequencies to Cincinnati, Bowling Green, Louisville, and Paris, Tennessee.
For lack of traffic, the Paris, Bowling Green, and Cincinnati stops are deleted in 1974, the same year the commuter’s headquarters are transferred to Nashville. With the introduction of Cessna 402Cs later in the year, the route network is expanded to Louisville and Owensboro, Kentucky, and to Evansville, Indiana.
A major growth of services occurs in 1975 as flights are initiated to Knoxville and the Tri-Cities and the Evansville stop is extended to St. Louis. To handle this growth the fleet is increased by the addition of a C-310 and a Douglas DC-3.
During the Bicentennial celebrations late in the year and through 1976, the Douglas transport is heavily marketed, with emphasis placed on nostalgia flights. The route between Nashville and Knoxville is particularly successful as Aerie records its greatest successes.
The company continues operations, but increasingly faces losses as frequent changes in its timetable confuse would-be passengers and other costs mount. In July 1978, Tennessee Airways begins flying, using Em-braer EMB-110 Bandeirante turboprops in direct and immediately successful competition. Under these circumstances, Aerie cannot survive and is forced to close its doors in early 1979.
AERIS, S. A.: Aeroport de Toulouse Blagnac, 1-BP 44, Blagnac, F-31702, France; Phone 33 (5) 61 16 76 00; Fax 33 (5) 61 16 76 99; Code SH; Year Founded 2000. Rising fuel prices, falling traffic, and bad weather negatively impact the finances of Air Toulouse International, S. A. The replacement services previously operated for other airlines are dropped as the airline concentrates exclusively on holiday charters. With 51% backing from French investors Charles-Henri Rossignol and Jean-Francois Felix, together with a 49% stake by the U. S. fund investor DSP Partners, the 20-year-old airline is reformed in January 2000 and renamed. Charles Rossignol becomes managing director; however, Francois Hersen is retained as president.
Employing a pair of wet-leased Boeing 737-336Es in new colors, which replace its single Dash-200, the reformed carrier now performs charters and subcharters for other European operators. A B-737-3Y0, previously operated by Air Holland (Charter), B. V., is delivered in early March.
AERLINTE EIREANN. See AER LINGUS IRISH AIRLINES, LTD.
AERMEDITERRANEA (LINEE AEREE MEDITERRANEE, S. p.A.): Italy (1981-1985). Organized at Rome on March 20, 1981 to take over the routes of failed Itavia (Aerolinee Itavia S. p.A.), this subsidiary of Alitalia (Linee Aeree Italiani, S. p.A.) is owned by the Italian government through its flag line, Aero Transporti Italiani, S. p.A.
(ATI) (97%) and private interests (3%). The fleet comprises 8 Douglas DC-9-32s transferred over from Alitalia (Linee Aeree Italiani, S. p.A.).
On July 1, the new entrant inaugurates scheduled passenger over a route from Rome to Lamezia Terme. Additionally, the company undertakes tour and inclusive-tour charters to various destinations in North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Passenger boardings for the first six months total 185,195.
Airline employment in 1982 stands at 380. Additional scheduled destinations now served include Alghero, Bologna, Catania, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Pisa, and Rome. Passenger enplanements jump to 571,968. Bookings climb again in 1983, up to 701,136, as the employee population rises by six workers.
The workforce is cut 1.5% in 1984 to 382. The company receives U. S. permission to launch passenger charter flights to America’s East Coast. Late in the year, plans are announced to merge Aermediterranea into Aero Transporti Italiani, S. p.A. (ATI).
Customer bookings for the year, meanwhile, accelerate 4.5% to 947,000, while freight bounces upward by 12.6% to 1.97 million FTKs. The amalgamation is completed in 1985.
AERO, LTD.: United States (1919-1922). Organized at New York City on July 26, 1919, Aero, Ltd. begins passenger charter flights to Atlantic City in August, employing a pair of war surplus, Aeromarine 50 flying boats. At a September sale of surplus USN equipment, Aero, Ltd. purchases 5 Curtiss HS-2Ls. Bids are placed on 10 more. A number of pilots are recruited, including George Gay, Harry Rogers, Sidney Schroeder, George Cobb, S. A. “Al” Cheesman, and C. A. “Duke” Schiller, who will become famous later, along with Cheesman, as one of Canada’s best-known bush flyers.
Following ratification of the 18th Amendment and the introduction of nationwide Prohibition, Aero’s operations are transferred to Miami in January 1920. From there, the navy and grey-colored HS-2Ls reportedly make some 40 flights, transporting passengers to liquor-legal Havana and Nassau, in the first regularly scheduled, postwar North American air service.
During the summer, the HS-2Ls are transferred to New York City to fly nonscheduled charters to Atlantic City, Newport, and other New England destinations in competition with the new air transport division of the Aeromarine Plane & Motor Corporation. As is the case with America Trans-Oceanic Company (A. T.O) and its successors, PBA (Provincetown-Boston Airline) and Naples Airlines 35 years later, the winter-south/summer-north schedule becomes a pattern. When the first traffic figures are released in October, they show the transport of 4,500 revenue passengers.
Aero, Ltd. continues service in 1921-1922. In late March 1922, an HS-2L en route to Bimini from Miami crashes; five passengers are killed and the resulting adverse publicity forces the charter operator to cease operations.
AERO AFRI CAINE (COMPAGNIE AERO AFRICAINE, S. A.): Algeria (1945-1952) . A subsidiary of Societe Africaine des Transportes Tropicaux (SATT), a surface transport group formed in 1933 to link the Mediterranean to French Equatorial Africa by road and rail over the Sahara Desert, Aero Africaine is formed at Algiers in the summer of 1945.
Employing a fleet of 9 war-surplus Lockheed Lodestars, the carrier undertakes weekly services in Algeria, together with 6 monthly roundtrips from that city to the capitals of French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. The operation is continued until 1952.
AERO AIR: 2050 N. E. 25th Ave, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, United States; Phone (503) 640-3711; Fax (503) 681-6514; Year Founded 1935. Aero Air is the FBO at Portland-Hillsboro Airport established in 1935. During the next 62 years, the company also undertakes passenger and cargo flights with land-based and amphibious aircraft and helicopters. By 2000, the fleet includes 1 each Grumman G-1159A Gulfstream III, Dassault Falcon 10, Grumman G-21 Goose, and Eurocopter AS-355F Twinstar.
World History
