Blue Line (airline)

Blue Line was a charter passenger airline with its head office in Building B of Paris Nord 2, Parc des Lumières in Roissy-en-France, France.^[1] It operated VIP flights and charter services for tour operators, as well as wet-lease contracts. Its main base was Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport.^[2] It ceased operation on 6 October 2010, after being liquidated by the Tribunal de Commerce de Pontoise.^[3]

History

Blue Line was established in January 2002 by Xavier Remondeau (Chairman and Chief Executive) and seven other shareholders, all aviation professionals. Operations were started in May 2002. It had 190 employees.^[2] The airline operated mostly charters and wet and dry leases aircraft to airlines. Many music groups have used their aircraft, such as U2. Blue Line uses a fleet of 2 Airbus A310s and McDonnell Douglas MD-83s for longer haul services, with the A310s being used for the longest range services. A fleet of Fokker 100s were used for regional and shorter haul flights across Europe. The airline operated this fleet for its charters. It was possible to configure an aircraft in any specification if needed. The A310s operated at 210-255 passengers in airline configurations, the MD-83s operated at 150-172 passengers in airline configurations, and the Fokker at around 100 passengers. Most aircraft are wet leased to airlines, but if the need were to arise, an aircraft could have been configured for VIP operations. The airline was based in France, but had services to as far south as Brazil and as far north as Norway.

Fleet

The Blue Line fleet included the following aircraft:^[4][5][6]

In June 2010, the Blue Line fleet had an average age of 20 years.^[6][7] One aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, registration F-GMLU, has added the Global Aviation colors, although it is still Blue Line, due to the carrier. Most of Blue Lines fleet of McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft were fitted with special hushkits on the rear of the engines. They were visible and reduced the amount of noise of the aircraft at takeoff. Blue Line had one aircraft, an MD-83, in use for U2's tour of Europe in "360 Air" Colors.

References

External links

• Blue Line
• Blue Line Fleet