Skymonster
Established Member
- Joined
- 7 Feb 2012
- Messages
- 1,774
Sadly, UK airline Jota Aviation was placed into administration on Friday 15th April.
Some people might not have heard of the carrier, but it carved out a niche flying mainly BAe146 / Avro RJ aircraft on ad-hoc charters and cargo services across Europe. Its passenger aircraft were regularly deployed for Premier League and Championship football teams to travel around the UK and into Europe as well as on urgent sub-service operations for other carriers (including into London City Airport), while its cargo fleet had been flying urgent parts charters to keep production lines moving and operating for postal services across Europe. Its final flight was a sports team charter into East Midlands, after which its last aircraft was ferried to Cranfield to join the rest of the fleet in storage.
Jota is yet another victim of the madness of Brexit. Since leaving the Union, it has become very difficult for UK airlines to bid for work in Europe - which Jota did very regularly in the past. EU airlines are able to object to foreign carriers from outside the area doing such work, and even if there are no alternative suitable aircraft available in Europe approvals now take time to be set up, whereas in the past UK airlines were able to take up European work on-demand (this has also affected CargoLogicAir, which has had to lay up one of its Boeing 747-400Fs as it is nolonger able to get so much charter work in Europe).
In addition to the personal tragedy of employees who have lost jobs, the collapse of Jota is all the more poignant as it was the last UK operator of the BAe146 / Avro RJ series of aircraft. It was also the last British airline flying British-made jet aircraft. With the recent retirement of the RAF 32 Squadron aircraft, the only examples of the 146 family still flying here in the UK are with the Meteorological Research Flight (G-LUXE) and Formula One Management (G-OFOM). This leaves only a motley collection of old and tired BAe Jetstream 41 turboprops at Eastern Airways as the final remnants of the UK airliner manufacturing industry operating commercially with UK carriers (the West Atlantic BAe ATPs are now all Swedish registered)
Some people might not have heard of the carrier, but it carved out a niche flying mainly BAe146 / Avro RJ aircraft on ad-hoc charters and cargo services across Europe. Its passenger aircraft were regularly deployed for Premier League and Championship football teams to travel around the UK and into Europe as well as on urgent sub-service operations for other carriers (including into London City Airport), while its cargo fleet had been flying urgent parts charters to keep production lines moving and operating for postal services across Europe. Its final flight was a sports team charter into East Midlands, after which its last aircraft was ferried to Cranfield to join the rest of the fleet in storage.
Jota is yet another victim of the madness of Brexit. Since leaving the Union, it has become very difficult for UK airlines to bid for work in Europe - which Jota did very regularly in the past. EU airlines are able to object to foreign carriers from outside the area doing such work, and even if there are no alternative suitable aircraft available in Europe approvals now take time to be set up, whereas in the past UK airlines were able to take up European work on-demand (this has also affected CargoLogicAir, which has had to lay up one of its Boeing 747-400Fs as it is nolonger able to get so much charter work in Europe).
In addition to the personal tragedy of employees who have lost jobs, the collapse of Jota is all the more poignant as it was the last UK operator of the BAe146 / Avro RJ series of aircraft. It was also the last British airline flying British-made jet aircraft. With the recent retirement of the RAF 32 Squadron aircraft, the only examples of the 146 family still flying here in the UK are with the Meteorological Research Flight (G-LUXE) and Formula One Management (G-OFOM). This leaves only a motley collection of old and tired BAe Jetstream 41 turboprops at Eastern Airways as the final remnants of the UK airliner manufacturing industry operating commercially with UK carriers (the West Atlantic BAe ATPs are now all Swedish registered)