Centre South is established at Belgorodskaya’s airport in 1994 to offer scheduled third-level services to regional destinations. S. P. Sidorov is appointed general director and he begins revenue flights with a pair of Yakovlev Yak-40s. Flights cease in 1995.
CENTRELINE AIR CHARTER, LTD.: Bristol International Airport, Bristol, North Somerset, England, BS19 3DP, United Kingdom; Phone 00 (44) 1275 474 501; Fax 00 (44) 1275 474 851; Http://www. b-f-c-co. uk; Year Founded 1987. Gordon Olson and Martin Barnes form the Bristol Flying Centre as an FBO at Bristol International Airport in 1987. With the former as managing director, the company over the next 13 years establishes a reputation as both a flight training and charter operation.
Charter flights, managed by Chief Pilot Barnes, are operated under the name CentreLine Air Charter. By 2000, the fleet includes a mix of 14 Piper PA-34 Senecas and PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftains. Nonsched-uled passenger and cargo flights are mounted throughout the U. K. and into Western Europe.
CENTURION AIR SERVICE: United States (1973). CAS is established at Bangor, Maine, in early 1973 to provide scheduled air taxi services to Greenville and Augusta. Although daily Cessna 402 roundtrips are duly inaugurated, they are only operated for a few months.
CENTURY AIR LINES: United States (1931-1932). Century Air Lines is founded at Chicago Municipal Airport by Auburn Motor
Company owner Errett Lobran Cord to provide low-fare passenger service with single-pilot Stinson SM-6000Bs. Eighteen-per-day operations in the Great Lakes area are begun between Detroit and Cleveland and Chicago and St. Louis with the first 8 SM-6000Bs on March 23, 1931. The public flocks to Cord’s carrier and, in July, the auto magnate begins another, Century Pacific Lines, in California.
By fall, extra stations are being added at Springfield and Toledo and the senior carrier is linked to its junior via a multistop route from St. Louis to Cleveland. Passenger boardings through October total 40,213. Late in November, four-times-per-day nonstop Detroit to Chicago roundtrips are introduced. Only three other airlines will book more passengers than Century for the entire year. The fleet now totals 14 Stinson Tri-Motors.
Errett Cord is able to operate economically during the Depression because he offers his customers discount fares and his employees rock-bottom wages. In February 1932, the new ALPA, led by David L. Behncke, in one of its first job actions, strikes Cord’s airborne empire. Much of the dispute is played out at Chicago, scene of Century’s base.
Replacement pilots are found and enter training. On March 8-9, while practicing night landings at East St. Louis, Illinois, an SM-6000B crashes on its 23rd approach, killing two of the five pilot-trainees aboard.
Meanwhile, Errett Lobran Cord, who is under intense pressure, offers a cut-rate mail service to the U. S. government in an effort to obtain subsidy. The move is turned down in Washington due largely to what such liberal members of Congress as Fiorello H. La Guardia and the press point out as the evils of the “Century Strike.”
Unable to obtain a mail contract and with his people still unhappy, Cord sells his airlines in a 140,000 share stock exchange to The Aviation Corporation (AVCO), a forerunner of today’s American Airlines, in April.
As part of the arrangement, which, incidentally, ends the strike, Cord receives an AVCO directorship.
CENTURY AIRLINES (1): United States (1972-1992). S. S. Airways
Is set up at Olathe, Kansas, in 1972 to provide both charter and scheduled passenger and cargo flights. Employing both an Aero Commander 500B and a Beech B-80 Queenaire, the company, employing the Century name, inaugurates scheduled frequencies in September, linking its base with Kansas City, Springfield, Lake of the Ozarks, and St. Louis.
Scheduled operations cease in 1980. Although air cargo and mail fights are continued, these, too, end in the recession of 1991-1992.
CENTURY AIRLINES (2): United States (1979-1981). Willi Jilke establishes a third-level commuter operation at Eureka, California, in the summer of 1979 under the name Six Rivers Air Service. Scheduled Cessna 402 passenger and cargo services are inaugurated in August linking the carrier’s base with San Francisco, Sacramento, Medford, Crescent City, and Santa Rosa.
In 1980, the carrier is renamed and the fleet is expanded by the addition of an Australian-made GAF Nomad II. Significant fiscal problems are encountered.
The carrier is in such economic difficulty at the beginning of 1981 that it is must shut down after its final flight on March 24. Company assets are literally turned over to the tax collectors.
CENTURY AIRLINES (3): United States (1980). This short-lived Century Airlines is set up at Kansas City, Missouri, in early 1980 to provide scheduled air taxi flights to Dodge City via Salina. Employing a Beech 18, the company duly begins daily revenue flights, but cannot maintain them beyond year’s end.
CENTURY AIRLINES (4): 7002 Highland Road, Pontiac, Michigan 48054, United States; Phone (810) 666-1200; Fax (810) 666-1450; Code CT; Year Founded 1983. Originally established as Cryderman Air Service, this Pontiac-based contract and charter freighter operator is renamed in 1983. Operations during the remainder of the decade and into the 1990s are maintained with a fleet of Douglas DC-3s and a Piper PA-31-310 Navajo.
In 1993-1994, President C. F. Cryderman operates 5 Douglas freighters, 1 Rockwell Aero Commander, and 1 Learjet 25B. Domestic flights continue during the remainder of the decade, however, the fleet is changed. Gone are 2 DC-3s, replaced by 1 Convair CV-640.
CENTURY PACIFIC LINES: United States (1931-1932). Given the popular support of his eastern enterprise, Century Air Lines, Errett Lo-bran Cord establishes another deep discount carrier at Glendale, California, in early summer 1931. Using the first of 10 delivered Stinson SM-6000Bs, he opens scheduled passenger and air express service on July 3 linking Glendale with San Diego, Fresno, Oakland, and San Francisco. In August, routes are stretched to Sacramento and Tucson.
Some 26 daily schedules are offered by October and by year’s end, services have been extended from Glendale to Yuma and Phoenix and from Phoenix to Tucson. The Arizona segments are challenged before that state’s railroad commission by American Airways, which has similar routing.
For the year, CPL transports 26,167 passengers and 36.6 tons of small packages.
En route to Los Angeles from Bakersfield on January 29, 1932, a Stinson SM-6000B, piloted by James V. Sandbloom, crashes into a canyon wall northwest of Lebec, California (eight dead). CPL is unaffected by the pilot strike which hits Century Air Lines on February 1 and during the month begins flying to El Paso.
It is, however, adversely affected when the Arizona Railroad Commission sides with American Airways in March and orders the Cord company to cease its flights in that state. CPL is now shut down, but becomes a part of the Cord sale of Century Air Lines to The Aviation Corporation (AVCO) in April.
CESKOSLOVENSKE-CSA. See CSA CZECHOSLOVAK AIRLINES (CESKOSLOVENSKE STATNI AEROLINIE)
CESSNYCA, S. A.: Columbia (1962-1974). Following the closure of AVISPA (Aerovias Pilotas Associados, S. A.) in 1962, one of the associated founders of that carrier, Jaime Castro, elects to continue. Forming a new company, Cessnyca, S. A., Castro purchases and employs a number of AVISPA’s Douglas DC-3s, Beech 18s, and 2 DC-6Bs to continue services from Medellin to such destinations as Chigorodo, Caucasia, and Puerto Berrio.
A DC-3, with 14 aboard, crashes near Chigorodo on January 17, 1974; there are no survivors. Unable to overcome the adverse impact of the tragedy or to compete in the cutthroat airline war raging between Ae-rocondor (Aerovias Condor de Colombia, S. A.) and SAM Colombian Airlines, S. A., Jaime Castro is forced to quit the air transport business later in the year.
CETA. See COMPAGIA ESPANOLA DE TRAFIC AEREO, S. A.
CEYLON AIRWAYS: Ceylon (1947-1948). Ceylon Airways is formed at Colombo’s Ratmalana Airport in the spring of 1947 and is the marketing name taken by the Air Transport Branch of the government’s Directorate of Civil Aviation. A technical assistance contract is signed with Air India, Ltd. and 3 Douglas DC-3s arrive from the subcontinent. They are christened Sita Devi, Sunethra Devi, Vihara Maha Devi (devi means “queen” in Sinhalese).
In June, the Viharamaha Devi completes a nine-day roundtrip flight to London to obtain a set of electoral registers for use in the upcoming national elections.
During the summer, cockpit and cabin crews fly the Douglas transports on training missions and route-proving flights. Emergency supply and rescue flights are operated in August when floods ravage the country.
On December 10, four-times-per-week Douglas DC-3 Colombo to Madras via Kankesanturai service is launched. The initial flight is operated by the Sita Devi, piloted by Capt. Peter Fernando.
Ceylon’s independence from Great Britain is achieved on February 4, 1948. All three DC-3s participate in a celebratory air show. Early in the year, frequency on the Colombo to Madras route becomes daily and a daily Colombo to Trichinopoly via Jaffna service is introduced.
A fourth DC-3 is acquired in May and is christened Sri Lanka Devi. The Douglas transports begin to fly Muslim pilgrims to Jeddah as part of the Hadj. In June, the Sunethra Devi is ordered to fly Ceylonese Navy personnel to Sydney via Singapore for additional training. The DC-3 becomes lost over Malaya, but is put back on course by an RAF aircraft that answers its distress calls. Upon its arrival, it becomes the first plane from Ceylon to land in Australia.
During the summer, the former British crown colony of Ceylon is granted dominion status and, in August, the company is renamed Air Ceylon, Ltd.
CF AIRFREIGHT: United States (1987-1989). When Eastern Air Lines cancels its Moonlight Special arrangement with the air freight forwarder on March 1, 1987, CF AirFreight parent Consolidated Freight-ways, Inc. moves to begin its own cargo service. Donald G. Berger is named the subsidiary’s president and the hub is transferred from Houston to Indianapolis.
Initially, a facility is shared with Purolator Courier, which is scheduled to move into its own new facility in midyear. Over $5-million worth of ground equipment is purchased, including 8 elevating loaders, 40 tractors, 300 dollies, and 40 forklifts. A fleet is assembled comprising 4 DC-8-50Fs, 2 B-707-320Cs, 9 B-727-100Cs, 1 Convair CV-580, and 1 Shorts SC-7 Skyvan. By summer, the company is providing its own airlift.
The route system is restructured in September-October. Following Purolator’s purchase by Emery Air Freight, the Purolator facility is purchased by Federal Express, which gives CF AirFreight until the beginning of the next year’s second quarter to vacate. B-727-100Cs are positioned at Austin, Syracuse, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Ft. Lauderdale while three newly received and hush-kitted DC-8-50Fs are based at Oakland, Phoenix, and Orlando.
At this point, 900,000 pounds of freight pass through the Indianapolis hub nightly. Overall, the company has 115 U. S. and Canadian terminals and service is offered to over 125 international destinations.
As operations continue apace in 1988, the CF AirFreight fleet grows by the addition of 9 more DC-8-50Fs and 2 CV-580s; 4 B-727-100s are withdrawn. Service begins in January to five new destinations—Norfolk, Raleigh/Durham, Peoria, Champagne, and San Diego. A 4,000-sq.-ft., $427,000, expansion is added to the carrier’s warehouse and distribution space at the Charlotte, North Carolina, terminal in April. In May, the company begins operating from its own new Indianapolis facility.
In October, nightly B-727-100C flights commence from Indianapolis to Detroit and Nashville, while DC-8-50F frequencies are begun from Indianapolis to Oklahoma City, Shreveport, and Ontario, California. Tampa and Jacksonville from Indianapolis DC-8-50F routes are opened in November. Although traffic figures are again not provided, company officials reveal that the year’s revenues are $389 million. The operating profit is $10.2 million.
In the spring of 1989, Consolidated Freightways, Inc. purchases struggling Emery Air Freight for $247 million. Berger takes charge of the new acquisition and combines it with his own to form Emery Worldwide, a CF Company.
CFI, INC.: 135 E. Reno Ave., Suite F-6, Las Vegas, Nevada 89119, United States; Phone (702) 736-0077; Fax (702) 736-6258; Year Founded 1985. Ira Eichenfield sets up CFI at Las Vegas in 1985 to provide corporate charters. By 2000, 11 full-time pilots are employed and the company flies 2 Beech 2000 Starships and 1 each British Aerospace BAe (HS) 125-800 Hawker executive jet, Beech Super King Air 200, and King Air 90.
World History
