IAS Cargo Airlines

International Aviation Services Limited, trading as IAS Cargo Airlines is a defunct wholly privately owned, Independent British airline that was based at London Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom. It commenced operations in 1967 and went bankrupt in 1980, following a merger with London Stansted based Trans Meridian Air Cargo (TMAC) to form the short-lived British Cargo Airlines. [http://www.airlinehistory.co.uk/Europe/UK/Airlines.asp#I www.airlinehistory.co.uk The World’s Airlines, past, present & future by David Lyall - IAS Cargo Airlines] ] [http://www.airlinehistory.co.uk/Europe/UK/Airlines.asp#B www.airlinehistory.co.uk The World’s Airlines, past, present & future by David Lyall - British Cargo Airlines] ]

History

IAS Cargo Airlines was the trading name of International Aviation Services Ltd., which was formed during the latter part of 1966 to commence worldwide cargo charters from London Gatwick in 1967.

Beginning

IAS Cargo Airlines commenced commercial airline operations from its Gatwick base with second-hand Bristol Britannia 300F turboprop equipment.

Commercial development

IAS Cargo Airlines acquired additional, second-hand Britannia turboprop freighters as well as a Canadair CL-44 "swing tail" freighter during the early 1970s to expand its fleet in response to growing worldwide demand for its pure freight services.

Becoming a jet operator

When the world's major scheduled airlines began re-equipping their fleets with new generation widebodied jet aircraft from the early 1970s onwards, a growing number of older generation, narrowbodied jet planes, such as the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8, became available on the second-hand market at prices smaller airlines that were lacking the resources to invest in new equipment could afford.

IAS Cargo Airlines became one of these smaller airlines that took advantage of this situation by purchasing its first DC-8-50F jet freighter in the mid-1970s. As business continued to expand, it introduced further DC-8-50Fs into its fleet during the second half of the 1970s.

By the end of the 1970s the company operated an all-jet fleet entirely composed of DC-8-50Fs. By that time it was receiving a growing number of air freight consignments that were shipped to its Gatwick base from the "other side" of the Channel. There were also plans to augment the fleet with larger capacity, "stretched" DC-8 "Super Sixty" series freighters, the first examples of which were expected to enter service towards the end of that decade. [http://www.dc-8jet.com/iasdc862f.htm]

Merging with a rival

Stansted-based Trans Meridian Air Cargo (TMAC), another small Independent UK all-cargo operator, had begun its existence at about the same time as IAS Cargo Airlines. TMAC also operated a similar aircraft fleet consisting of the same aircraft types, including a small number of DC-8Fs. Therefore, combining both companies' businesses to achieve greater operational synergies as well as to attain greater economies of scale seemed to be the next "logical" step to ensure survival in a competitive market place dominated by bigger, more powerful rivals.

IAS Cargo Airlines eventually merged with TMAC in late 1979 to create British Cargo Airlines.

Closing chapter

The newly created British Cargo Airlines only had a brief life. It folded within a couple of weeks after it had assumed IAS Cargo Airlines' and TMAC's combined operations as a new legal entity.

Causes of collapse

The main reasons for the combined entity's collapse included:

* A deep recession in Britain, which affected UK-based manufacturing companies that were the airline's main customers. This caused a slump in those companies' output of manufactured goods and led to a collapse in demand for specialist air freight services.

* Steeply rising jet fuel prices in the aftermath of the fall of the Shah of Iran. This increased the operating costs of relatively fuel-thirsty narrowbodied jet freighters such as the Boeing 707 and the DC-8 (compared with more fuel-efficient widebodied freighters).

* A big influx of long-haul widebodied aircraft capacity into the fleets of British Airways and British Caledonian, Britain's two principal scheduled airlines at the time, as well as their main overseas competitors' fleets during the late '70s/early '80s. This resulted in a major increase in bellyhold cargo capacity that cost freight forwarders and shippers less to fill (compared with the higher rates that were required to fill narrowbodied pure freighters profitably).

Incidents and accidents

In 1977 IAS Cargo Airlines became indirectly involved in a fatal accident causing the loss of an aircraft bearing its name as part of a hybrid colour scheme. This hybrid colour scheme combined parts of IAS Cargo Airlines' livery with that of Dan-Air Services Ltd., one of the leading wholly privately owned, Independent British airlines at the time that was the owner and operator of the crashed aircraft. [http://aviation-safety.net/photos/displayphoto.php?id=19770514-0&vnr=1&kind=PC] ["The Spirit of Dan-Air", Simons, G.M., GMS Enterprises, Peterborough, 1993, pp. 89, 90]

The accident itself involved one of Dan-Air's Boeing 707-321C freighters (registration G-BEBP), which IAS Cargo Airlines had operated under a so-called "wet lease" arrangement with Dan-Air, whereby the latter was providing the aircraft as well as flight deck crews and maintenance support under contract to the former. The aforesaid aircraft crashed on May 14, 1977 during the final approach to Lusaka Airport at the end of a scheduled all-cargo flight from London Heathrow via Athens and Nairobi when its right-hand horizontal stabiliser separated as a result of metal fatigue, causing a loss of pitch control and killing all six occupants. ["The Spirit of Dan-Air", Simons, G.M., GMS Enterprises, Peterborough, 1993, p. 89]

Some air accident databases wrongly cite IAS Cargo Airlines as the operator of the aircraft involved in this accident despite Dan-Air being that aircraft's actual operator. [http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770514-0&lang=en]

A major industry debate on the maintenance requirements as well as service life limitations of high-time "geriatric" jets ensued as a result of this accident. ["The Spirit of Dan-Air", Simons, G.M., GMS Enterprises, Peterborough, 1993, pp. 90/1]

(For further details see 1977 Dan-Air Boeing 707 crash.)

Code data

*Former IATA code: FF
*Former ICAO code:
*Former callsign:

Notes

References

* ("World Airline Directory", 1967-1980)

*

External links

* [http://www.airlinehistory.co.uk/Europe/UK/Airlines.asp#I www.airlinehistory.co.uk The World’s Airlines, past, present & future by David Lyall - IAS Cargo Airlines and British Cargo Airlines]
* [http://www.dc-8jet.com/iasdc862f.htm/ Photograph of DC-8-62F aircraft model displaying IAS Cargo Airlines' contemporary 1970s livery]
* [http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770514-0&lang=en Aviation Safety's accident database]