Most Obscure Commercial Airline That You have Flown

[Boca68]

1Time airlines in South Africa... No longer operating as far as i recall...

The reason they are not operating is self-explanatory, being 1Time

For me, nothing to obscure, Interjet is one, but they are growing in Latin America. Also flew Easyfly, Colombian regional airline in 2007 from BOG-CUC, in a Bae Jetstream 41. I think they had only just launched a few months previous. Still going I see now

 

[RB]

In 2015 we were supposed to be flying Vueling-instead a White Airways plane showed up at the gate. White are apparently a Portuguese charter mob and provided the most offhand service I have experienced. White Airways - Wikipedia

 

[Warks]

Air Tanzania from Kampala to Dar-es-Salaam. I'd given up on buses due to a near head-on in the middle of the night. I'd given up on trains due to several derailments on the way to Kampala. I was going to take the ferry across Lake Victoria but it sank...

So Air Tanzania from Entebbe, with the front half of the plane opening up like 'jaws' to take freight, was the best option. And I couldn't complain. I got there without incident.

Why is Compass considered obscure? They were pretty big in their day. I got stranded by them in the first collapse.

 

[Cossie]

That above made me chuckle, this sort of thing happen to you often?

 

[burmans]

Charters are fine, I didn't want to include military type flights.

Military flights can be commercial. The Sri Lankan Air Force operates commercial flights from Colombo (Ratmalana) to Trincomalee (China Bay), or at least they did!

 

[burmans]

Myanmar has a few, from memory I flew

Air Bagan
Yangon Airways
Golden Myanmar
Air KBZ

 

[dajop]

In Australia, Queensland Pacific, BNE-GLT via BDB in the early 90's. And a first day flyer on Compass (still have the certificate they sent to first day flyers ).

Probably most obscure outside AU are domestic in Bangladesh - Novoair and US Bangla Airlines. In Europe - Montenegro Airlines, TGD-LJU.

 

[Strategic Aviation]

Strategic Airlines a.k.a. Air Australia

 

[Warks]

That above made me chuckle, this sort of thing happen to you often?

It was merely a series of unfortunate events. It did have me checking for black cats, ladders and cracks in the footpath (no footpaths in Dar-es-Salaam back then though).

 

[Mattg]

Peach Air- UK to Greece in 1990s. I think there is/was an Asian carrier with a similar name which is clearly popular for anagrammatic reasons

I flew the Japanese version of Peach Airlines last month! Was a fairly standard LCC affair. I also flew Vanilla Air on the same trip.

A couple of others on my list would have to be Air Chathams and Star Peru, both airlines which have seriously old fleets.

 

[Cossie]

Will probably fly Vanilla at the end of June.

 

[Pixels]

I flew Air Memphis to Aswan from Luxor early one morning, little nervous as Memphis is the city of the dead...

 

[LambyFlysFirst]

Buraq Airlines Libya. 738, but with a few extra rows. If you thought European budgets were cramped....

 

[Wanderlust_tim]

I have had a few:
Qeshm Air flying on Fokker F100's Tehran to Esfahan.

Bassaka Air flying an A320 from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap.

Sunwing flying Gatwick - Toronto return. £199 rerurn. No frills and the plane broke on the way home and I had a 24 hour delay. The free hotel probably cost Sunwing more than I paid for the flight.

Nas Air: Jeddah to Riyadh on an A320 - probably the worst LCC flight I have ever taken.

 

[DaveinCanberra]

Tara Air (a subsidiary of Yeti Airlines!) recently from Kathmandu to Lukla in a DHC-6 Twin Otter.

Lukla! Hats off to you sir.

 

[Danger UXB]

Liat in the West Indies in the late 70's. Barbados to Grenada. I think the woman I was sitting next to had a live chicken as her carry on but it was a long time ago and Mount Gay rum does things to your eyes !!

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Lukla! Hats off to you sir.

Thank you, but despite the reputation of the airport (and no doubt due to the skill & experience of the flight crew) both landing & takeoff were disappointingly quite tame. Of course, on reflection, tame is a very good way for landings & takeoffs to be... :shock:

 

[AnthFlyer]

Monarch - I flew them out of London in the late 90s, back to Melbourne via somewhere in the middle east. They were dirt cheap, but it really was 'BYO sandwich'! They didn't even have a large screen for us all to watch some lame movie. You get what you pay for.

 

[juddles]

Monarch - I flew them out of London in the late 90s, back to Melbourne via somewhere in the middle east. They were dirt cheap, but it really was 'BYO sandwich'! They didn't even have a large screen for us all to watch some lame movie. You get what you pay for.

Monarch! Obscure yes, but long-lived - it is their 50th anniversary this year I think?? I flew them Australia-England in 1972 on a Bristol Britannia (obviously I was just a baby then) Seems now they have finally morphed into a LCC

 

[Scarlett]

Cimber Sterling, low cost 737 carrier in Denmark. Never heard of them until i needed to get from Copenhagen to Montpellier.

I remember flying with these guys about 6 or 7 years ago in December. Internationally NCL-CPH and back was on a CRJ200 and then internally within Denmark (CPH-KRP rtn) on an ATR72. The ATR flights were the first time I'd been on an aircraft when it was de-iced. Added a little to the flight time but the Danes had it all sorted out: certainly when compared to the amateur hour in the UK as soon as any snow fell...

The other interesting thing about flying Cimber was on return into NCL at the end of the trip: whichever staffer at NCL opened the doors at the terminal side of the jetbridge maybe didn't realise that Cimber was an international airline, as they sent us pax down the wrong pathway. I thought it a bit strange when we walked past the BA Galleries lounge (airside) enroute to baggage collection. Then we popped out into the baggage claim hall without passing the UK Border immi folks. I'd done enough trips into NCL to realise the difference between a domestic and an international arrival. Those with HLO just took off straight out the doors and into their cars, taxis etc. I had checked luggage AND was in the UK on a working visa so didn't want to upset the system next time I travelled, so asked one of the staffers if our bags were going to come out on the domestic carousel. There was a bit of a flurry before they finally sent us through a side door and back down some corridors to enter the UK properly!

Air Nostrum (Iberia subsidiary, back when it had J class)
Monarch (UK LCC, just a lot smaller than easy and Ryan)
Spring (China LCC, mostly Shanghai based)

Flew on a Monarch jet once, but it was a long way from the UK... SYD-MEL was the journey. Jan 1990. I gather the 757 had been leased to Australian Airlines due to some minor aviation kerfuffle going on at that time! ISTR travelling on a RAAF C130E about the same time for a similar reason.

Compass airlines back in 1991 and sunflower airlines in Fiji in 97 and 99

Never flew Compass but do remember flying in at least one East-West F-27 in the 80's. Did they fly to CBR? If so, was probably CBR-MEL to visit my grandmother down there.

Following on from the OneWorld Airlines that you have flown, started by Coyote25, how about listing the most obscure commercial airlines that you have flown?

My actual obscure nominations are:
Thai Airways into HKT in the 80's. - many of you might be thinking that TG isn't much of an obscure airline, but this was "TH" the domestic airline before it was merged into what we now know as TG.
Plenty of smaller airlines in and around Europe:
- LS (Jet2)
- WF (Wideroe)
- AT (Royal Air Maroc)
- OU (Croatia Airlines)
- 5W (Iceland Express)