Prime Airlines was formed by

HeavyLift Cargo Airlines HeavyLift Cargo Airlines Pty Ltd is a cargo airline based in Los Angeles, United States. Founded in Sydney, Australia, it started operations in 2004 and operates scheduled and charter cargo services. HeavyLift took over passenger airline OzJet ...

(HC Airlines) as a passenger charter carrier. Initially offering its sole aircraft on an

ad hoc ''Ad hoc'' is a List of Latin phrases, Latin phrase meaning literally for this. In English language, English, it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a Generalization, generalized solution ...

basis from its base at

East Midlands Airport East Midlands Airport is an international airport in Castle Donington, England. The airport is situated between Loughborough (), Derby () and Nottingham (); Leicester is to the south and Lincoln, England, Lincoln northeast. It serves the maj ...

(EMA) near

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

History

Originally the airline was to be called Breeze but the company had difficulties in securing the name for operation. Finally the name Prime Airlines was chosen. With the assistance of former Transaer managers HC Airlines leased its sole aircraft an

A300 The Airbus A300 is Airbus' first production aircraft and the world's first twin-engine, double-aisle (wide-body) airliner. It was developed by ''Airbus Industrie GIE'', now merged into Airbus SE, and manufactured from 1971 to 2007. In Septe ...

B4-203 and recruitment began for cabin crew. As the airline only had one aircraft a total of 27 cabin crew were hired for the start of operations in mid-2001. The company had no need to recruit flight crew as HC Airlines operated the Airbus A300B4 in cargo configuration and simply cross utilized the crew. Once the airline obtained its AOC it began operations for a number of British inclusive tour operators and the military flying to destinations around Europe and the Middle East. After 9/11 the company suffered with lack of contracts and a second blow came when an

American Airlines American Airlines, Inc. is a major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the ...

Airbus A300 (

Flight 587 American Airlines Flight 587 was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, to Las Américas International Airport, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. On November 12, 2001, th ...

) crashed in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Like most airlines at this time Prime had to make redundancies and cut its cabin crew numbers in half. The start of 2002 looked better for Prime Airlines as once again

charter contacts came in. The company started to plan for a brighter future and looked at adding extra aircraft to its fleet.

The closure

One year after the events of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, Prime Airlines and its parent company HC Airlines closed down. This came as Heavylift's financial problems worsened closing down its engineering, cargo and passenger services.

Fleet

Prime Airlines leased a former Transaer aircraft registered EI-TLQ. The aircraft was painted in a basic white livery with Prime titles on the main fuselage and Logo on the tail. Once the aircraft arrived it was registered G-HLAD. The aircraft was fitted with 314 seats in all economy, however the seats in the forward section could be changed to business class seats. Originally the aircraft went into service in 1981 with

Laker Airways Laker Airways was a private British airline founded by Sir Freddie Laker in 1966. It was originally a charter airline flying passengers and cargo worldwide. Its head office was located at Gatwick Airport in Crawley, England. It became the sec ...

then went on to

Air Jamaica Air Jamaica was the flag carrier of Jamaica. It was owned and operated by Caribbean Airlines from May 2011 until the cessation of operations in 2015. Caribbean Airlines Limited, headquartered in Piarco, Trinidad and Tobago, had administrative of ...

before being placed into service with Transaer. The aircraft was scrapped in 2005 at

Pinal Airpark Pinal Airpark , also known as Pinal County Airpark, is a non-towered, county-owned, public-use airport located northwest of the central business district of Marana, in Pinal County, Arizona, United States. Silverbell Army Heliport is co-l ...

, Arizona.

External links

* {{Portal bar, United Kingdom, Companies, Aviation Defunct airlines of the United Kingdom Airlines established in 2001 Airlines disestablished in 2002

History

The closure

Fleet

See also

External links