Grounded: Airways International Cymru

This episode of Grounded looks at Airways International Cymru, the third attempt at a Welsh airline. Based in Cardiff, Airways Cymru were the in-house airline of Red Dragon Travel and would operate charter flights for Red Dragon as well as other independent companies. Despite a shoe-string budget, Airways Cymru would operate two BAC-1-11 aircraft as well as several 737s. A winter sub-lease went sour and dragged the airline down, so settle in for the full Airways International Cymru story.
The next two episodes will look at Amber Airways and Paramount, I've got a few other episodes lined up too but as always am open to suggestions :)
**PRODUCTION NOTES FOR THIS EPISODE**
* First up, I apologise for the audio in this episode. There were a few things going on during recording, the worst of which was being rather unwell and I end up fluffing a word which I didn't spot until it was too late. I put a card on screen to joke about that.
* Absolutely no offence intended to the good folks of Wales, I am a regular visitor and do speak a very small amount. I also love Tom Jones and lost several hours of production time due to blasting out his music whilst working on the Tom Jones reference...
* No offence meant to anyone at Dan-Air, I was and still am a fan and am just describing an opinion of them "of the day"
* There is only one known photograph of the SunCoast 737, I try my best not to overuse it.
* I've tried a few little jokes to make up for the lack of visuals at times, due to when and where the airline operated there isn't an abundance of images so I've tried to work around that.
**Airlines Referenced in This Episode that are covered by other Grounded Episodes**
Air Wales / Air Anglia / Air UK
Air UK (AirUK) were formed through the merger of 4 other airlines to become the UK's largest regional airline and 3rd largest airline behind British Airways and British Caledonian. Operating from 1980 until 1997 when they rebranded as KLM UK they were broken up into KLM Cityhopper and Buzz.
• Grounded: Air UK
British Island Airways
The original British Island Airways formed one of the original 4 parts of Air UK, the second incarnation, referred to in this episode was spun off from Air UK's charter division in 1982. They operated a fleet of BAC-1-11 and MD-83s, formed a good reputation as a reliable charter airline and expanded into scheduled services.
• Grounded: British Isla...
Palmair / Bath Travel
The legendary Palmair and their parent company Bath Travel won numerous awards as one of the UK's oldest travel companies before they orderly wound down in the early 2010s.
• Grounded - PALMAIR
Princess Air
Princess Air were a short lived British charter airline based in Southend-on-Sea. Operating the BAe 146-200 "Quick Change" Princess Air could carry passengers during the day and freight overnight.
• Grounded: Princess Air
Also a special shout out to the Yesterdays Airlines blog which provided a lot of information for today's episode, with me filling in gaps or elaborating. Normally I rely on numerous sources and documents but with AIC there wasn't much out there, without these guys I doubt this episode would have been longer than five minutes. Check them out here - www.yesterdaysairlines.com/ai...
I really appreciate any comments and feedback on this or other episodes as well as suggestions for future episodes. Believe me, if I say that your airline is "on the list", it really is :) I mention several other airlines in this episode and am already working on almost all of them, it just takes time :)
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#AirwaysInternationalCymru #AirwaysCymru #GroundedSeries

[@matthewianson1709]

In Welsh there is something called a soft mutation where the first letter of some words are changed and this happens to Cymru, when you say welcome to Wales, that's Croeso i Gymru

[@ExpoAviation]

wow, I never knew that! It's certainly an interesting language and I'm glad that it seems to be having a bit of a resurgence :) My vocabulary is very limited but being in Granadaland I was able to tune into HTV & S4C for some Welsh language programming when I was younger :)

[@cambrian5595]

Absolutely superb episode (they are all good, but being Welsh I am biased 😁).
I had the pleasure of flying with AIC in 1987, when I was 10 years old. The outbound flight, from CWL to Girona was with a 1-11 and the return on a B732.
The cabin crew were so friendly and hard-working and the airline's demise was indeed a very sad day for those of us who loved and still love CWL.

[@ExpoAviation]

Thank you, I really appreciate that :) I've wanted to cover this airline for a while so am glad to finally get it done, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Nice scooping in both the 1-11 and the 737, I never got to go on one of the pocket rockets :/

[@julieculverhouse9556]

Biased here too…🤣🤫

[@andreharrington]

Another great episode. Thank you for covering Airways Cymru. I flew on G-YMRU from CWL-TFS in August ‘84 as a 7 year old child and since then have always had a soft spot for this little airline. Each episode you do is excellent but being Welsh and having flown with them this is my favourite! 👍🏼👍🏼. Looking forward to AmberAir and Paramount Airways. Keep up the good work. ✈️✈️

[@ExpoAviation]

Thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed this episode :) It's cool that you got to go on one of their 1-11s, I missed out on my chance for a ride on the Pocket Rocket (In my case it was British World). I hope I did the airline justice in this one and hope Amber and Paramount won't disappoint :)

[@andreharrington]

@@ExpoAviation
Getting to fly on a BAC 1-11 (300 series) was great as only 9 of this variant was ever built! Also making it non stop to TFS was lucky too. I also remember my mum being asked to move forward one row as she was sat in the last row on the left hand side and the crew member had to take this seat to be sat close to the rear air stair door. All such great memories. Always used to get my dad to take me to visit CWL when I was younger and would often see CYM. Great little airline and you did their story proud. 👍🏼

[@joe36451]

That airline really has an identity crisis. Great content as always

[@ExpoAviation]

Thank you, I appreciate that and I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

[@lynnefitzgerald7182]

Thanks! Loved the article. I did a lot of those check-ins.

[@ExpoAviation]

Thanks Lynne :)

[@uwucaffeineaddiction4023]

What an interesting video, thanks for posting

[@ExpoAviation]

Thank you, I appreciate that :)

[@James-sh8mu]

been waiting for this

[@ExpoAviation]

I hope it was worth the wait :)

[@AviationCommercials]

Excellent as always. I never knew how their name was pronounced!

[@ExpoAviation]

Cheers mate, that's the joys of the Welsh language ;) They also have the lonest train-station name in the world and I was tempted to work that into the episode but then would have had to try and pronounce "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" and well, that ain't happening ;)

[@AlexAviation.]

I really love watching your content expo with oldies but it gold

[@ExpoAviation]

Thanks Alex, I'm glad you are enjoying it :) I have some more recent airlines to cover of course, I just like to mix things up a little sometimes ;)

[@AlexAviation.]

@@ExpoAviation can't wait

[@TR_M88]

Hi Phil, as ever a fantastic video of an airline I knew nothing about!

[@ExpoAviation]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

[@gregorylenton8200]

great info

[@ExpoAviation]

Glad you think so :)

[@ATR42ATR42]

Great Video.....I Travelled with AIC from Cardiff to Mahon in Aug 87 on G-BNCT

[@ExpoAviation]

Cool! Thanks :)

[@lugash4]

Very interesting

[@ExpoAviation]

Thank you :)

[@ianstewartorr8455]

Very very informative video greetings from Scotland 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@iliveinurcloset]

Lol I am Scottish and English 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@ianstewartorr8455]

@@iliveinurcloset my older cousin told me I was conceived in England my mums cousin is in Oxfordshire and a uncle in Dover

[@ExpoAviation]

Thanks Ian, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

[@quailking8265]

Great Vid as always. Now, can you make videos on:
Canadian Airlines
Air Jamaica
Flybe
Pan Am
Citybird airlines
Thomas cook
Monarch airlines
Northwest Airlines
Continental Airlines
Sabena
Wow air
Air Berlin
Jet Airways

[@ExpoAviation]

Thanks, pretty much all of those are on my to-do list :)

[@iliveinurcloset]

Cool

[@ExpoAviation]

Glad you enjoyed it, I also did a bit more digging into Donbass aero for you :)

[@iliveinurcloset]

@@ExpoAviation thanks

[@user-kt7zo3no7t]

Доброго дня, всем.

[@ExpoAviation]

И тебе хорошего дня :)