Grounded: Air Scandic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 พ.ย. 2019
- This episode of Grounded takes a look at the legendary Air Scandic, the charter airline which was known for its MS Paint approach to aircraft liveries...
Air Scandic had a complicated setup involving Air Cordial and Lapland Air, the involvement of Air Foyle and Finnair ensured the airline had a great reputation in its early years. It was only from 2004 that it started to go pear shaped and when Viking Airlines gets involved you know it will end in tears...
I hope you are all enjoying the "Grounded" series, there are plenty more episodes coming up soon. This episode had been specially requested, if you have an airline you'd like to feature in a future episode do let me know, you never know - I might already be working on it ;)
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20 years ago, I chose to go on holiday to the Greek island of Lefkas with Kosmar holidays, when the tickets arrived stating the airline was to be Air Scandic, my initial thoughts were, small airline probably small plane since Preveza airport serves very small seaside resorts and one island. I was amazed when I got to the gate seeing this huge brilliantly painted wide body, for an airline that I knew nothing about my experience with them was excellent, it was what it was with no airs and graces, staff who looked and spoke like real human beings with real local accents and who gave great hospitality. Our big bird was an A300 which left Manchester bang on time and arrived in Preveza around 15 minutes early, and this has to be my best record yet and I have flown many times since. I always wondered what had happened to them, thanks for the blast from the past.
Very enjoyable, as always. Thank you
Thank you, I appreciate that :)
I remember my flight from Malaga to Gatwick on their wide bodied Airbus 300ER, before they were grounded..Great video.
You explain very well the history of this low cost charter airline & its origines!
Thanks Tim :)
Great stuff! Must have been a difficult one and you did an amazing job
It was a bit of a tricky one but it needed to be done, plus I do try and work in requests :) Thanks :)
Interesting
Thank you :)
Air Scandic will always hold a special place in my heart. Flying out to Alicante Saturday May 22nd 1999. (Flight code was SCY if i remember rightly) A full plane of United fans on their way to Barcelona for the European cup final. The flight should have left at 15:30. But the captain must have been a red as well, the fa cup final against Newcastle was about to kick off when there was an announcement over the tannoy...."Passengers on Scandic flight to Alicante, the flight has a 2 hour delay". There was a huge roar in the already very packed airport bar. There was much rejoicing. Beat Newcastle comfortably and then made our way to the gate to enjoy a nice flight with 250 other United fans who also had no tickets for the final. The beginning of probably the most fantastic and emotional week of our lives.
God bless you Scandic. And thank you!!
Thanks for your comment, I remember that week myself given I was at Wembley I'm from the Blue half ;)
@@ExpoAviation Indeed. Against Gillingham. I did watch it though the head was still spinning badly after a 4 hour delay left us in Alicante, pissed as farts and not eaten for two days .
Haha "Typical Air Scandic" then ;)
Another great episode of Grounded.
Could you do one on my local airline Palmair at some point? I'm sure it would be popular with those from the South Coast.
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
Palmair is most certainly on my list, in fact I started working on that a while back as it certainly was a pretty unique airline and I ended up getting bogged down in the research. I've resumed work on it today so hope to have something up soon, there is however another episode on the way which I think may be of interest but you need to wait & see ;)
@@ExpoAviation Alright, thanks for the heart and reply.
If you need any information about their operations at any point, I can help as I have a few copies of their original magazine. :)
I was meant to fly with Air Scandic in 03 from Newcastle to Corfu, I wasn't looking forward to the flight. I was so relieved when
i got to Newcastle to see a Finnair 757 at the stand.
Dodged a bullet then? ;) I'd have liked to have gone on their A300, at least in the early days when they were reliable.
@@ExpoAviation I flew on the Airbus to Corfu and the TriStar on the way back in 99. Happy to be alive really 👍🏻
Great vlog as always! What is it with the nordic countries and flying charters from GB? You have Sterling (NB) with Air Columbus, Portugal to the UK. And then you have Air Atlanta. Thomas Johansson from Sweden. Why the name Trans Jet...? He started out as a corporate pilot for Volvo in the mid 60`s. Finnair=Kar air. Then you had Norway Airlines that became part of Air Europe until they went bust in 1991. In Norway you had two short lived airlines that did not care about the gov or the pax. The first one was Trans polar. The other Mey-air. Look it up! Have a nice weekend my friend!
Thank you :) I think some of it was down to it being easier to obtain a Swedish air operators certificate, it was the same with Greece and saw a number of Swedish and Greek airlines operating from the UK (Air Scotland for example was really Electra Airlines of Greece!). It made for interesting times at the airport though with plenty of variety :) Have a great weekend too!
I was the base chief stewed for SCY in Manchester when we first started up! and it was me who designed the new livery but not as you see it, in brief, the vertical stabilizer should have had a full Sun with Horizontal lines going through the lower half of it like in a sunset, the dots over the letters i in the words Air Scandic also had the same logo and that was repeated on both engines? John Walsh the owner approved the new livery but changed it to the price sicker that you see now, LOL,I had worked for many airlines in the past, Orion and Air Uk Leisure to name and many more, SCY was very unusual but unique at the same time the cabin crew training was just as good as any other airline, and the cabin service was much like other airlines at that time? Most of the flight deck came from Scandinavia, we had some Brits, and a really nice guy from Greece, Pampos, who went flying for (Helios,) I left SCY after a couple of years pastures new at Easyjet LPL but returned to SCY for my last summer season of flying after 30 years. I have fond memories of Air Scandic Crews.
In Loving memory of Pampos Charalambous first Officer on the ill-fated Helios Airlines. and Air Stewardess, Lynn McCollough (Airtours ) who died with nine other crew members of her crew, when their light aircraft positioning flight crashed after takeoff in Glasgow Both ex-Air Scandic crew united by our wings.
Wow! Thanks for getting in touch David.
It's a shame we didn't get to see the livery as you described it as I'm sure it would have looked fantastic. That said, while the revised one had that "cheap" vibe to it, I do miss seeing it around and when I see old photos it reminds be of happier times when we had more variety in airlines & aircraft.
It sounded like a great airline to work for, we had a similar thing going on at Excel in Bristol. We were Excel cabin crew, employed by Excel but trained and operating on an Islandsflug aircraft on the Icelandic register. The ground grew were Icelandic and the pilots were a mixed bag, some Icelandic and a few Greeks. Even though we felt abandoned by Excel we all had a great time with the Islandsflug guys (I'd give anything for a time machine to go back and do it again).
I vividly remember the day the Helios bird came down, I was working a flight to ZTH and was told the news upon our arrival. I got home to Bristol in time to see my Cypriot housemate rushing out on his way to London to get a flight home as he knew several folks on-board. I remember the Glasgow crash too, a tragedy that shouldn't have happened and I think marked the end of UK airlines positioning crews with light aircraft, domestically at least.
Thanks again for your comment :)
I think you have 'XL'd' yourself with this one, Phil:)
Hehe I see what you did there ;) Thank you :)
I flew Scandic from Manchester to Kefallonina, I think in 2002 on their A300 (pretty sure it was G-TTMC). I do remember thinking when we got the tickets "Who the f**k are Air Scandic?!" and on arriving at MAN and seeing the paint job, I'll admit I did a double take and wasn't feeling the most confident. I'm not a nervous flyer at all but my other half was always a bit apprehensive flying anywhere and would always ask me (she knew I was a closet spotter) what I knew about the particular type of aircraft and how safe it was. Time to do the right thing, grit your teeth and smile!! We actually had a very late missed approach arriving at KEF due to wind shear (I reckon we we're at about 100 feet so must have been very close to or below DH). I'll freely admit, that was the only time I'd describe myself being on a "white knuckle ride" as my own sense of self preservation kicked in and I gripped the seat rests for dear life. Only flight I've ever experience that. Second approach was perfect and the captain actually came on and explained what had happened and said "if you look out of the window now now you can see the aircraft that was following us doing the same thing, so it's a pretty common occurrence here".
wow! Thanks for sharing that, Carl. Very late Missed Approaches are always "interesting" :)
Yep interesting is one word for it! I'll be honest it scared me more than a bit! The captain was a pro and a true gent as well.
Could we have Thoma Cook next, I always find your videos interesting and Thomas Cook would be pretty interesting. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Scott, I'm glad you enjoy them. I will eventually be doing one on Thomas Cook. I had always planned to cover the airlines which went into it, Flying Colours, Airworld, Caledonian, JMC and the Airtours side of things too though I never expected to have to do one on Thomas Cook itself. It'll probably be a good few months away as I need to let the dust settle first and then see what comes out in the court proceedings.
@@ExpoAviation Amazing, That one would be very interesting because it has so much history.
17 hour delay in Manchester going algarve. The oxygen masks dropped down, when there was no emergency and the onboard meal was frozen. Worst airline I've been on.
Wow that's really bad, does sound about right though going off some stories that I'd heard at the time about various carriers.
@@ExpoAviation It is 100% true my friend, accompanied with a reluctance to provide vouchers, during the delay, which I'm certain you'll be aware, breaks legislation.
Oh yes I didn't doubt you, I was just having flashbacks to the troubles with a number of charter carriers in the 90s and early 00s. We have the legislation now though it of course still has plenty of loopholes for airlines to worm their way through and out of :/
I fly 4x a month, using Lufthansa as a parent, but Austrian Airlines, Swissair is the same get up, you'll know better than me. I've had one delay in 6 years (covid =no flying), it was a Manchester chauffeur company, failed to turn up in City Centre for Austrian and it's crew, just a genuine hour delay. I heard the same old, same old about Scandic. I'm certain I recall, phoning Scandic, in the Channel Isles ? Maybe I'm mistaken. Trying to ascertain, where the bird was, and what reason are they refusing to give out Vouchers = phone put down. Air scandalous, we called them. Great informative vid btw. Was unaware of the looming tragedy for one of it's crew, may he RIP. That was an awful incident.