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| Founded | 1936 |
|---|---|
| Commenced operations | 1936 |
| Ceased operations | 1957 |
| Key people | Ivan Holyman |
Australian National Airways (ANA) was Australia's predominant aerial carrier from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s.
On 19 March 1932 Flinders Island Airways began a regular aerial service using the Desoutter Mk.II VH-UEE Miss Flinders between Launceston, Tasmania and Flinders Island in Bass Strait, which competed with shipping services offered by William Holyman and Sons Ltd. Due to monopoly arrangements with other Australian shipowners, Holymans (as it was known) was only allowed to carry passengers on internal Tasmanian routes, and resented the intrusion. Brothers Captain Victor Holyman and Ivan Holyman purchased a de Havilland D.H.83 Fox Moth VH-UQM Miss Currie which entered service on the same route on 1 October 1932, and soon amalgamated with Flinders Island Airways to form Tasmanian Aerial Services Pty Ltd. They later purchased a de Havilland D.H.84 Dragon VH-URD Miss Launceston that began a regular service between Melbourne, Flinders Island and Launceston in September 1933. [1]
Following the Australian Government's announcement of the Empire Air Mail Scheme late in 1933, Holymans entered into a partnership with the two main shipping companies servicing Tasmania, Huddart Parker and the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, to form an equal-share partnership in a new Holyman's Airways Pty Ltd headed by Ivan Holyman. The new company, with a capital of £90,000, was registered in July 1934, and ordered two de Havilland D.H.86 Express airliners. The first of these, VH-URN Miss Hobart, began operating across Bass Strait on 28 September 1934, but went missing just three weeks later, on 18 October, and was believed to have crashed off Wilsons Promontory. Captain Victor Holyman's was one of the twelve lives lost.
Undaunted, Holyman's Airways purchased a second-hand D.H.84 (VH-URG Golden West) and ordered two more D.H.86s, and soon began to expand operations throughout south-eastern Australia. A route from Melbourne to Sydney via Canberra was established in 1935 using D.H.86 VH-UUB Loila. On the day of a first proving flight between the capitals, 2 October, another D.H.86, VH-URT Loina, crashed into Bass Strait off Flinders Island killing all five on board. The Melbourne-Sydney flights, the first regular daily airmail service between the two centres, got underway on 7 October.
After a non-fatal accident in Bass Strait to the D.H.86 VH-USW Lepena on 13 December 1935, Ivan Holyman used his influence with the Australian Government to have an official ban on the importation of US-built commercial aircraft to be lifted, and Holyman's Airways ordered an example of the recently introduced Douglas DC-2. It entered service as VH-USY Bungana on 18 May 1936. [2]
Early in 1936 Ivan Holyman approached the Adelaide Steamship Company, owners of Adelaide Airways, with a view to an amalgamation aiming to become Australia's most powerful airline. Adelaide Airways had recently taken over West Australian Airways and the new combine would thus effectively control airline traffic between Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. With funding from the Orient Steam Navigation Company a new Australian National Airways was registered on 13 May 1936, and began services under its new name on 1 July 1936. It acquired a second DC-2 VH-UXJ Loongana that began a twice-weekly service between Melbourne and Perth on 21 December 1936.
Meanwhile, efforts to expand operation northwards to Queensland were being thwarted by Airlines of Australia (AoA), its main competitor. Established in 1931 as New England Airways by G.A. Robinson and Keith Virtue of Lismore, it operated services in northern New South Wales and between Sydney and Brisbane, Queensland, expanding further into Queensland by taking over a number of struggling regional airlines during the mid-1930s. It was restructured as AoA in 1934 with funding by an investment group the British Pacific Trust. In 1936 it introduced Stinson Model A airliners in a regular service between Sydney and Brisbane, and later acquired Douglas DC-2s and Douglas DC-3s. After several months of fruitless negotiations with its financiers, ANA managed to gain a controlling interest in AoA in April 1937, although the two airlines retained separate public identities until 1942. Between them the two airlines operated four DC-2s and four DC-3s by the time of the outbreak of World War II, as well as several other aircraft including two Model As, two D.H.84s, two D.H.86s and nine de Havilland D.H.89 Rapides.
When Australia entered World War II in 1939 the Government of Australia requisitioned ANA's four DC-3s, leaving it to battle on with its assortment of lesser aircraft. However, ANA was soon operating a network of services around Australia on behalf of the war effort. It operated a large number of Douglas DC-2s, DC-3s and even at least one rare Douglas DC-5, mostly on the behalf of the American forces in Australia. [3]
During the 1940s ANA was plagued by a series of accidents and disasters that resulted in considerable adverse publicity. [4] The most serious of these were:
Many of these accidents were put down to human error (generally on the part of the pilots), and a tightening of operational policies seemed to have arrested the problem. A final disaster was:
With the end of the Second World War in sight, the Chifley government proposed a Commonwealth Government monopoly on scheduled airline services throughout Australia. Its legislation was stymied, however, by the Airline Operators Secretariat, which argued that the Constitution guaranteed freedom of commerce between states. The High Court agreed in its Airlines Case decision. That did not, however, prevent the Government from starting its own airline, Trans Australia Airlines (TAA), in 1946. ANA then had effective and well-resourced competition on its inter-state air services for the first time since 1937. [13]
In 1946, the main aircraft flown by both ANA and TAA on interstate services were DC-3s, but both airlines soon acquired small numbers of Douglas DC-4s for long-distance and high-capacity services. ANA's attempts to further improve its fleet were hamstrung by such factors as insufficient finance and, when finance was available, Government refusal to allow large foreign currency purchases to the detriment of the national balance of trade. In the late 1940s, TAA began acquiring Convair 240s, which were a pressurised improvement over the DC-3. ANA was not then in a financial position to begin replacing its DC-3s with more modern aircraft. When finally able to purchase new aircraft for long-range services, ANA chose the pressurised Douglas DC-6B whereas TAA acquired the Vickers Viscount. Although the DC-6B was a more economical aircraft to operate than the smaller Viscount, passengers preferred the Viscount, which was faster and, being a turboprop aircraft, had a quieter cabin with less vibration. [14]
Sir Ivan Holyman also wanted to expand ANA's activities to cover international routes, but that was largely prevented by the Commonwealth Government holding an effective monopoly on Australian-based international air travel through its own airline, QANTAS. An exception was the part Australian-government owned British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines, whose flights were operated by ANA between 1946 and 1948, when the airline purchased its own aircraft. ANA aircraft occasionally flew overseas under contract to the Commonwealth Government, such as immigrant flights between Australia and Italy in the late 1940s. ANA also commenced regular flights to North America in 1947 using DC4s, the main stops being in Fiji, Honolulu, San Francisco and Vancouver, not including refuelling stops over the Pacific. ANA also had overseas commercial aviation interests through shareholdings in Cathay Pacific and Air Ceylon. [14]
TAA proved so successful that, after the Liberal–County Party Coalition defeated the Chifley Labor government at the 1949 federal election, the new government was reluctant to close it down as the directors of ANA expected. Recognising the benefits of competition in commercial aviation, the government enacted the Two Airline Agreement in 1952, to ensure that both airlines maintained viable business, while preventing competition from third parties, such as Ansett Airlines, from operating on inter-capital air services. [14]
When Holyman died in 1957, the shareholders offered to sell out to the government, in order that ANA might merge with TAA and some smaller airlines. [15] The government declined the offer.
After initially dismissing his offer, the ANA board began talking with Reginald Ansett, head of the much smaller Ansett Transport Industries; with its main interstate operation Ansett Airways. Finally, ANA was sold to Ansett, on 3 October 1957, for £3.3 million. The two airlines were merged to form Ansett-ANA on 21 October 1957 [16] and the name was retained until 1 November 1968 when it was renamed Ansett Airlines of Australia.
Trans Australia Airlines (TAA), renamed Australian Airlines in 1986, was one of the two major Australian domestic airlines between its inception in 1946 and its merger with Qantas in September 1992. As a result of the "COBRA" project, the entire airline was rebranded Qantas about a year later with tickets stating in small print "Australian Airlines Limited trading as Qantas Airways Limited" until the adoption of a single Air Operator Certificate a few years later. At that point, the entire airline was officially renamed "Qantas Airways Limited" continuing the name and livery of the parent company with the only change being the change of by-line from "The Spirit of Australia" to "The Australian Airline" under the window line with the existing "Qantas" title appearing above.
Ansett Australia was a major Australian airline group, based in Melbourne, Victoria. The airline flew domestically within Australia and from the 1990s to destinations in Asia. After operating for 65 years, the airline was placed into administration in 2001 following a financial collapse and subsequent organised liquidation in 2002, subject to deed of company arrangement. The last flight touched down on 5 March 2002.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1934:
The de Havilland Express, also known as the de Havilland D.H.86, was a four-engined passenger aircraft manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company between 1934 and 1937.
Air Niugini Limited is the flag carrier of Papua New Guinea, based in Air Niugini House on the site of Port Moresby International Airport, Port Moresby. It operates a domestic network from Port Moresby to 12 major airports while its subsidiary company, Link PNG, operates routes to minor airports. It also operates international services in Asia, Oceania, and Australia on a weekly basis. Its main base is Port Moresby International Airport, which is located in 7 Mile, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Niugini is the Tok Pisin word for New Guinea.
Essendon Fields Airport, colloquially known by its former name Essendon Airport, is a 305 ha public airport serving scheduled commercial, corporate-jet, charter and general aviation flights. It is located next to the intersection of the Tullamarine and Calder Freeways, in the north western suburb of Essendon Fields of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The airport is the closest to Melbourne's City Centre, approximately an 11 km (6.8 mi) drive north-west from it and 8 km (5.0 mi) south-east from Melbourne–Tullamarine Airport. In 1970, Tullamarine Airport replaced Essendon as Melbourne's main airport.
Sir Reginald Myles Ansett KBE was an Australian businessman and aviator. He was best known for founding Ansett Transport Industries, which owned one of Australia's two leading domestic airlines between 1957 and 2001. He also established a number of other business enterprises including Ansett Pioneer coachlines, Ansett Freight Express, Ansair coachbuilders, Gateway Hotels, Diners Club Australia, Biro Bic Australia and the ATV-0 television station in Melbourne and TVQ-0 in Brisbane which later became part of Network Ten. ATI also bought out Avis Rent a Car and had a 49% interest in Associated Securities Limited (ASL). In late 1979, mainly due to the collapse of ASL, Ansett lost control of the company to Peter Abeles of TNT and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation who became joint managing directors.
MacRobertson Miller Airlines (MMA) was a Western Australian airline that operated between 1927 and 1993. After being purchased by Ansett Transport Industries in 1968, it was eventually rebranded Ansett WA.
On 26 June 1950, a Douglas DC-4 Skymaster aircraft departed from Perth, Western Australia, for an eight-hour flight to Adelaide, South Australia. It crashed 22 minutes after take-off, 35 miles (56 km) east of Perth Airport. All 29 occupants were killed in the accident; one initially survived, but died six days later. It was the worst civil aviation accident in Australia.
Air Queensland, formerly Bush Pilots Airways, was an Australian airline which operated from 1951 until 1988.
South Pacific Airlines of New Zealand was a New Zealand airline, operating between 1960 and 1966. It is regarded as a forerunner to Ansett New Zealand.
Burnie Airport, also called Burnie Wynyard Airport or Wynyard Airport, is a regional airport located adjacent to the town of Wynyard, about 17 kilometres (11 mi) west from Burnie, Tasmania, Australia. Formally named the Wynyard Aerodrome, the first official opening occurred on 26 February 1934. The Burnie Airport is majority owned by the Burnie City Council.
Australian National Airways, Ltd. (ANA) was a short-lived Australian airline, founded on 3 January 1929 by Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm.
The Two Airlines Policy was a policy of the Government of Australia from the late 1940s to the 1990s. Under the policy, only two airlines were allowed to operate flights between state capital cities and between capitals and nominated regional centres. The Two Airlines Policy was a legal barrier to new entrants to the Australian aviation market. It restricted intercapital services to the two major domestic carriers. This anti-competitive arrangement ensured that they carried approximately the same number of passengers, charged the same fares and had similar fleet sizes and equipment.
Airlines of New South Wales callsign "NEWSOUTH" was an Australian domestic regional airline that operated from 1959 until its merger into Ansett in 1993. It was formed by Reg Ansett's takeover of Butler Air Transport. Airlines of New South Wales operated air passenger services in New South Wales, and later in other Australian states. In 1964–65 the airline fought a High Court case, Airlines of New South Wales Pty Ltd v New South Wales, that was significant in adjudicating the spheres of constitutional power of the national and state governments in respect of air navigation.
Butler Air Transport was an Australian airline founded by C. Arthur Butler to operate air transport primarily among New South Wales airports in Australia, from 1934 until 1959.
On the evening of 30 November 1961, Ansett-ANA Flight 325, a service from Sydney to Canberra, Australia, operated by a Vickers Viscount 720, broke up in mid-air and crashed shortly after takeoff, when it encountered a severe thunderstorm. All 15 people on board were killed.
The Queensland Air Museum is a not-for-profit community-owned aviation museum located at Caloundra Airport in Queensland, Australia. Its mission is to collect and preserve all aspects of aviation heritage with an emphasis on Australia and Queensland. The museum has the largest collection of historical aircraft in Queensland and it also has a large collection of aircraft engines, equipment, artefacts, photographs and books.
Aviation in Australia began in 1920 with the formation of Qantas, which became the flag carrier of Australia. The Australian National Airways (ANA) was the predominant domestic carrier from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s. After World War II, Qantas was nationalised and its domestic operations were transferred to Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) in 1946. The Two Airlines Policy was formally established in 1952 to ensure the viability of both airlines. However, ANA's leadership was quickly eroded by TAA, and it was acquired by Ansett Transport Industries in 1957. The duopoly continued for the next four decades. In the mid-1990s TAA was merged with Qantas and later privatised. Ansett collapsed in September 2001. In the following years, Virgin Australia became a challenger to Qantas. Both companies launched low-cost subsidiaries Jetstar and Tigerair Australia, respectively.
