Skyways Coach-Air in the late-1960s On 30 September 1955,
Skyways inaugurated the world's first combined coach-air low-fare scheduled service between London and Paris. On that day, a 36-seat Skyways
Douglas DC-3 took off from
Lympne for a 55-minute cross-Channel flight to
Beauvais with fare-paying passengers for the first time. (Two "special inaugural flights" carrying about 50
Government officials, company
executives,
journalists and other dignitaries preceded the inaugural commercial flight on 21 September 1955.) This air service formed part of a combined coach-air-coach journey between the city centres of London and Paris. For passengers travelling from London to Paris, the journey began on a 32- or 36-seater
East Kent Road Car Company coach that took them from London's
Victoria Coach Station to
Lympne Airport near
Hythe where they transferred to a Skyways
DC-3. This aircraft flew them across the Channel to
Beauvais Tillé Airport where passengers transferred to a Transports Renault coach, which took them to République Coach Station in Paris (Hôtel Moderne Palace on
Place de la République, Paris 12). At the time of launch, total travelling time was just under seven hours. (In the pre-
motorway days, the 70-
mile (110
kilometre) coach journey between Central London and Lympne along some narrow, winding country roads, and through London, Maidstone & many villages, alone took more than three hours. Following subsequent road improvements, the introduction of faster coaches and aircraft as well as streamlined
ground handling procedures, this eventually reduced to about 5½ hours. (£7.70) for off-peak travel while the peak-time fare was £8.75. These not only undercut the direct
London Heathrow—
Paris Orly/
Le Bourget standard
tourist class air fares of
British European Airways (BEA) and
Air France by about 45% but were also cheaper than the corresponding fares of competing surface travel modes. London—Paris coach-air services launched with a single DC-3 configured in a high-density, 36-seat layout. A second DC-3 sourced from the fleet of sister company
Skyways Ltd and a third aircraft
leased from
Airwork were added for the 1956 summer season. This fleet subsequently expanded through the addition of further aircraft. During the 1957 summer season, Skyways Coach-Air increased the frequency to up to 16 daily round-trips and launched its second coach-air route from London to
Vichy (via Lympne). In 1958,
Skyways Coach-Air Ltd was formed as a dedicated low-fare coach-air-coach
subsidiary of Skyways Ltd. A London—
Brussels coach-air service (via Lympne and
Antwerp) operated during the 1958 summer season for the duration of
Expo 58. Also in 1958, further seasonal coach-air services from London (Lympne) to
Lyons,
Montpellier and
Nice launched while coach-air services to
Clermont-Ferrand began in June 1964. Services from London (Lympne) to
Tours and from
East Midlands to Beauvais started in 1965. Operations from London (
Ashford and
Luton) to
Ostend commenced in 1970. The airline also applied for traffic rights to extend its coach-air network to
Basel,
Palma de Mallorca,
Barcelona and
Tenerife. Lympne's persistent
waterlogging problem forced many flights to divert to
Gatwick, especially in winter. During the late-1950s and early-1960s, Skyways Coach-Air's DC-3s also operated regular
charter flights from Gatwick. Meanwhile, Skyways Coach-Air had assumed the ownership of the
lease for Lympne Airport, which entailed taking on all operational responsibilities, including the provision of
air traffic control (ATC) services. with additional services operating on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays. In winter, frequency dropped to between one and two round-trips per day. Typical London—Paris return fares ranged from £9 8s to £12 17s. To take advantage of the burgeoning market for
all-inclusive holiday charter packages and increase the 748s' utilisation, Skyways Coach-Air began operating a series of
inclusive tour (IT) charter flights to the
Mediterranean from the grass airfield at Lympne in summer 1967. This soon overstretched the airline's small fleet and led to frequent delays and diversions, exacerbated by the airport's waterlogging problem. As a result of knock-on effects, it also resulted in a deterioration of the company's punctuality on the coach-air network. To address Lympne's waterlogging problem ahead of the 1968 summer season, Skyways Coach-Air's management decided to have a 4,500
feet (1,372
metre)
concrete runway laid. This work was executed during the lean months in winter 1967/8. The new runway became operational in April 1968. As the concrete layer proved to be too thin to withstand regular operations by aircraft in the Avro 748 weight category, cracks soon started to appear. Following its grounding, Skyways Coach-Air went into
liquidation on 20 January 1971.
Fleet Details Skyways Coach-Air Ltd operated the following aircraft types: •
Avro/
Hawker Siddeley 748 •
Douglas DC-3 Fleet in 1962 In April 1962, the Skyways Coach-Air fleet comprised 7 aircraft. In February 1972, Sterling Industrial Securities sold International Skyways to
Dan-Air for £650,000. Dan-Air completed the deal to take over International Skyways from Sterling Industrial Securities in April of that year, following which it integrated most of the former Skyways International routes into its own network of regional, short-haul scheduled services. Initially, these routes were operated by a separate subsidiary named Dan-Air Skyways.
Dan-Air Skyways fuselage titles were applied to the four HS 748s Dan-Air inherited from Skyways International. By 1974, Dan-Air Skyways was fully integrated with the rest of Dan-Air's scheduled operation, as a result of which it ceased to exist as a separate entity and the full Dan-Air
livery had been applied to all former Skyways International aircraft.
Fleet Details International Skyways Ltd (trading as Skyways International) operated the following aircraft types: •
Hawker Siddeley 748 •
Douglas DC-3 Fleet in 1971 In May 1971, the Skyways International fleet comprised 7 aircraft. Skyways International employed 303 people at this time. ==Accidents and incidents==