Highland Express Airways

Highland Express Airways was an airline based in Scotland. Its main base was at Prestwick International Airport. It ceased operations in 1987.

Code data

*IATA Code: VY
*ICAO Code: TTN
*Callsign: Tartan

History

The airline was formed in 1984 and operated a daily service between Prestwick and NewarkInitially scheduled to begin flying on the day of the Scottish International Airshow at Prestwick on Sat 30-May-1987 to New York / Newark and Toronto, things began to go wrong quite early when the Toronto route licence was not forthcoming and their sole B747 was delivered weeks late.

Operations finally began between Stansted / Prestwick and Newark with flight VY201 routing STN-PIK-EWR on Tuesday 30-June-1987, operations ex Birmingham were operated from Sat 4-July-1987, flight VY211. Initially 4 STN and 3 BHX rotations were planned weekly, however after a few weeks the Monday am EWR-PIK-STN flight routed onto BRU for maintenance with Sabena, returning on a Tuesday.With passengers numbers not meeting targets and debts mounting, a short lived service starting at Gatwick to Newark via Prestwick was launched in November but some three weeks later the lessors of the 747, Citicorp called in the receivers and repossessed the 747 which was in Brussels on maintenance.

Fleet

The Highland Express fleet consisted of the following aircraft:

*1 Boeing 747-100

External links

* [http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?airlinesearch=Highland%20Express%20Airways&distinct_entry=true Photos of Highland Express aircraft]