More Tea Vickers?

[TobyV]

TEA was founded by Georges Gutelman in 1971 and based at Zaventem/Melsbroek, Belgium. Initially they had 707 and 720 equipment, variously acquired from TWA, Boeing, Japan and one or two that Alain Délon would have had for "Club Med" had he succesfully obtained his AOC. They then became one of the very first Airbus customers, ordering an A300B4 (OO-TEG). Whilst they waited for that, they obtained the second prototype and sole surviving A300B1 which became OO-TEF and was named "Aline" after Gutelman's wife. He had previously christened their first 707 after her.

TEA expanded during the 70s with a liason with Belgian tour operator "Sunsnacks" and various charters of their aircraft by Air Algerie to fly Muslim pilgrims out to the Middle East. During the 1980s they formed a subsidiary, TEAMCO, to handle maintenance not only for their own aircraft but also for all the US Army (Europe)'s helicopters, Aloha's aircraft and a variety of other engineering jobs involving inert F-16 platforms, mobile shooting galleries etc. They had acquired a 707-320 which continued into the mid to late 1980s, about four years after the last of the older 707s and 720s had been pensioned off and they also disposed of the A300B4.

"Aline", the A300B1 continued until 1990 after which time it was kept at the company's base at Melsbroek on the north side of Brussels airport.

Latterly, they formed subsidiaries in the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy, mostly using 737-200s from the parent company, but latterly acquiring used 737-300s and in some cases new A310s on order from Airbus.

Sadly it all collapsed in 1991. The French and Italian subsidiaries contiued for a while longer and the Swiss subsidiary until the late 90s when it was acquired by Easyjet. The UK subsidiary was reformed about 2/3 years later by the same MD as "Excalibur", operating this time, A320s. The main company was partly resurrected as "Eurobelgian Airlines" and was subsequently purchased by Virgin to become Virgin Express.

Gutelman went on to form City Bird, which operated MD11s until it too went bust in the wake of 9/11. I believe his most recent venture is called "Birdy".

Aline, the world's oldest Airbus was stripped of useful spares and became the property of the fire service, and wasnt too well treated. Efforts to save the airframe by enthusiast and photographer, Laurent Herjean, sadly came to nothing and it was sold for scrap and destroyed in 2003.

[RAF_Quantum]

Many thanks Garry, just had to blow the cobwebs off the old girl

Regards

Sean

Keep practising