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Aerotransportes Litoral Argentino, S.A. - ALA. - (SG)

Buenos Aires-Aeroparque

ALA was 30% owned by Austral Compañia Argentina de Transportes Aéreos S.A when that company ordered four Series 420ELs both for its own use and for Aerotransportes Litoral Argentino SA – ALA with an option on two longer fuselage Series 500 aircraft on the 3rd May 1967.  The company received one of the initial aircraft order with delivery in September 1968 in a 74 seat configuration.  A Series 413FA was leased, initially for crew training in the United Kingdom until April 1969.  In November 1969 a Series 521FH was delivered as part of an Austral Compañia Argentina de Transportes Aéreos S.A order for three aircraft.  The company specialised in destinations to the north and northwest of the country and the aircraft type was introduced into service on 29th September 1968.  Schedules were flown from Buenos Aires-Aeroparque to Corrientes, Formosa, Paraná, Posadas, Resistencia, Rosario, Salta, San Juan, Santa Fe and Tucumán with Salta being connected with Antofagasta in Chile.  Asuncion was also served from Aeroparque via Resistencia with the One-Elevens.  The two companies were eventually fully merged as Austral Líneas Aéreas S.A. on 23rd June 1971.

ALA COLOURS

Air Patagonia, S.A. - (PTG)

Buenos Aires-Aeroparque

This company planned to operate one of Austral’s Srs.518FGs on freight, small package and mail services both within Argentina and to nearby South American countries.  The aircraft was repainted in the new company’s colour scheme and delivered on 4th August 1995.  After initial crew training, only one revenue charter flight was flown from Aeroparque to Ezeiza, Resistencia, Jujuy and Salta carrying newspapers on 20th January 1996 before returning to Aeroparque via Tucuman with passengers.  The aircraft was then put in store.

Austral Compañia Argentina de Transportes Aéreos, S.A. - (AU)

Buenos Aires-Aeroparque

On the 3rd May 1967 this company ordered four single class 74 seat Series 420ELs both for its own use and for Aerotransportes Litoral Argentino SA – ALA with an option on two longer fuselage Series 500 aircraft.  This was the first South American order for the BAC One-Eleven.  At the time of the order Austral had a 30% holding in ALA and both companies jointly marketed their services although retaining their separate identities.  One of the original aircraft order was delivered direct to ALA.  Austral inaugurated service with the type on 24th October 1967 with schedules linking Buenos Aires-Aeroparque with Bahía Blanca, Comodoro Rivadavia, Córdoba, Mar del Plata, Mendoza, Villa Mercedes, Neuquén, Río Gallegos and San Carlos de Bariloche.  On 18th November 1969 a new order was announced for three Series 521FHs.  These stretched One-Elevens, two of which went to Austral and the other to ALA, were all delivered in November 1969.  They were fitted out in a 104 seat single class configuration.  Austral introduced the new type into service 27th November 1969.  During 1970 Austral operated a twice weekly service for LAN - Chile from San Carlos de Bariloche to Puerto Montt.  One of the Austral Series 500s was leased to Sadia SA Transportes Aéreos from mid September 1970.  It was initially used for crew training in readiness for this Brazilian company taking delivery of its own new One-Eleven 500s from October 1970.  This same aircraft was returned in early January 1971.  The two companies were eventually fully merged as Austral Líneas Aéreas S.A. on 23rd June 1971.

AUSTRAL COLOURS (First livery)

Austral Líneas Aéreas, S.A. - (AU/AUT)

Buenos Aires-Aeroparque

This company was formed from the complete merger of Austral Compañia Argentina de Transportes Aéreos, SA and Aerotransportes Litoral Argentino SA – ALA on 23rd June 1971.  The fleet comprised four Series 420ELs and three Series 521FHs although one of the Series 521FHs was on lease to Court Line Aviation Ltd in the United Kingdom at the time.  At the same time the new company introduced a new colour scheme for its One-Eleven fleet.  This was gradually applied to the aircraft between 1971 and 1973.  Aircraft were painted in one of four basic colour schemes.  These comprised bands of six shades starting with the lightest on the top to the darkest at the bottom of the cheatline.  Colours were pink to red, pink to magenta, mustard yellow through various greens to dark green and oranges to red.  Following the loss of LV-JNR in an emergency landing at Bahía Blanca in early December 1973, a Series 509EW was firstly leased from British Caledonian Airways Ltd in early January 1974 before it was purchased outright in early October 1975.  In 1974 Austral’s colour schemes applied to the One-Elevens was changed to what was arguably the most pleasing of all the colours that the airline used. Four basic colours were used in bands of three shades broken by thin white lines.  These were desert light brown/medium brown/dark brown, light green/medium green/dark green, yellow/orange/red and celeste/medium blue/dark blue.  In January 1975 a Series 529FR was obtained from Phoenix Airways of Switzerland and this was initially operated in the former owner’s basic gold and white colour scheme with Austral titles and fin logo.  Two Series 401AKs were leased from the USA at the end of December 1976 and initially operated in an overall white colour scheme.  They remained in service until February 1979.  In January 1978 and April 1979 two used Series 518FGs were obtained from the British Aircraft Corporation.  The final purchase of One-Elevens was three aircraft from Hapag-Lloyd Flugesselschaft in November 1979 and January 1980.  These last three were a Series 515FB, a Series 524FF and a Series 528FL.  Soon after the merger of ALA and Austral all international scheduled services were suspended in favour of Aerolíneas Argentinas under a government directive but numerous additional domestic destinations were added to the One-Eleven network over the years adding to those already established by ALA and the original Austral.  These included Esquel, Goya, Iguazu, Jujuy, Reconquista, Río Grande, Río Cuarto, San Luis, San Martin de Los Andes, Santa Rosa, Santiago del Estero, Trelew, Viedma and Villa Mercedes.  By April 1982 the One-Elevens were being used on non-stop night tourist flights from the beach resort of Mar del Plata to Córdoba, San Juan and Tucumán.  The aircraft were also operated on charter flights throughout Argentina.  International charters included flights to Antofagasta, Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt and Santiago in Chile, to Asuncion in Paraguay, to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, Florianapólis, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil and to Montevideo in Uruguay.  In 1978 a “New Look 78” colour scheme was introduced in which all the aircraft were painted in the same colour scheme.  This was the final Austral colour scheme used on their One-Eleven fleet and comprised red and black cheatlines with a white top and large ‘AU’ on the forward fuselage.  During 1981 the last of the Series 400 aircraft was withdrawn but it was to be another thirteen years before the last of the Series 500s was retired.  Between June 1990 and August 1991 LV-OAX and LV-OAY were regularly operated as pure freighters on the Aeroparque to Río Grande run with a technical stop in Trelew.  With all the passenger seats removed these two aircraft regularly carried up to 9 tonnes of cargo comprising mainly electrical goods.  Apparently these two aircraft had a higher max take-off weight than the rest of their fleet.  At the beginning of October 1990 LV-JNT was leased to Linea Aérea del Cobre SA – LADECO and this continued for nearly a month.  During 1993 replacement of the Series 500s began but the last scheduled service was not flown with the type until 23rd October 1994 when LV-MEX flew into Aeroparque from Chapelco, so ending twenty-seven years of operations with the type to the very day.  Over the years the company and its predecessors had flown 317,789 hours with its Series 500 aircraft and 111,215 hours with its Series 400s amounting to a grand total of 429,004 hours.  The aircraft were maintained in the hangars at the company’s engineering base to the south of Aeroparque’s runway at Buenos Aires.  At the end of One-Eleven operations only two One-Elevens were still in use, the others having been withdrawn earlier. These last two aircraft were sold to European Aviation Ltd in the United Kingdom but were destined to never see further service after their arrival in the UK.  Most of the other aircraft were reduced to spares but two were donated to the Fuerza Aérea Argentina and ferried to Morón airport in the western suburbs of Buenos Aires on 4th October and 1st December 1993.  One of these, LV-MZM, is preserved at the INAC (Instituto Nacional de Aviación Civil) for the use of C.I.A.T.A. (Centro de Instrucción de Aeronavegantes y Técnicos Aeronáuticos) where it is used for training purposes and the other, LV-OAX, is used by the fire school.  This last aircraft was chartered by the Argentine Government to operate four rotations between Comodoro Rivadavia and Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in April 1982.  LV-MZM and LV-OAY were also used for ferrying supplies to Comodoro Rivadavia from the El Palomar military base in Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Neuquén in support of the Falklands campaign but only LV-OAX flew to Port Stanley.

 AUSTRAL COLOURS (Images courtesy of the Christian Volpati Collection)

 Six band colours:-

1. pink to red

2. pink to magenta

3. mustard yellow to green

4. orange to red

Three band colours:-

5. yellow/orange/red

6. celeste/medium blue/dark blue

7. light green/medium green/dark green

8. desert light brown/medium brown/dark brown

New look 78 colours:-

9

G-AWWY (LV-PSW) and G-AXJK remained in their BCAL livery with titles added.

The following aircraft were also named at some stage as follows:-

LV-JNS - Islas Sandwich del Sur

LV-JNT - Islas Georgius del Sur

LV-LHT - Isla Gran Malvina

LV-MEX - Antardida Argentina

LV-MRZ - Bahía Agradable

LV-MZM - Cabo de Hornos

LV-OAX - Puerto Argentino

LV-OAY - Isla Soledad

Líneas Aéreas Privadas Argentinas – LAPA, - (MJ/LPR)

Buenos Aires-Aeroparque

This airline was due to take delivery of two leased Series 416EKs in July and September 1990 as part of a BAe 146 order but the order and the lease deal was not completed. The company later showed interest in two former Austral Líneas Aéreas Series 420ELs later in the same year but this too came to nothing.

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