UTA to Denpasar Bali in the late 1980s?

topbanana · Fri Mar 09, 2018 8:25 pm

Was looking for some help....

Can anyone tell me if UTA flew their own aircraft into Denpasar Bali in the late 1980s?

Thank you.

eta unknown · Fri Mar 09, 2018 10:56 pm

They most certainly did, if not the late 80's, then early 90's.
The 2 routes usually operated from CDG to NOU operated as follows:
CDG-BAH-SIN-JKT-NOU & CDG-BAH-SIN-JKT-SYD-NOU. 747-300's. When the -400's took over the BAH strop was eliminated.
UTA also launched 2 short lived extra services to the region- one was an extra NOU rotation: CDG-SIN-DPS-NOU. The other was a dedicated MEL flight (once weekly- lasted 6 month if that)

RJNUT · Fri Mar 09, 2018 11:50 pm

while were on the topic of UTA how was it pronounced ? . I have assumed phonetically in English OOH TAY AH?

SpaceshipDC10 · Fri Mar 09, 2018 11:59 pm

RJNUT wrote:
while were on the topic of UTA how was it pronounced ? . I have assumed phonetically in English OOH TAY AH?

In French just Uh Té Ah as it's the shortening of Union de Transports Aérien, and although I don't remember having heard it in English I'd say You Tee Aaa.

gadFly · Sat Mar 10, 2018 3:42 am

RJNUT wrote:
while were on the topic of UTA how was it pronounced ? . I have assumed phonetically in English OOH TAY AH?

Almost. üü tay ah

gadFly · Sat Mar 10, 2018 3:48 am

SpaceshipDC10 wrote:
RJNUT wrote:
while were on the topic of UTA how was it pronounced ? . I have assumed phonetically in English OOH TAY AH?

In French just Uh Té Ah as it's the shortening of Union de Transports Aérien, and although I don't remember having heard it in English I'd say You Tee Aaa.

It came out of an airline called "Transports Aériens Internationaux" --TAI, (International Air Transport) that was tasked with servicing French colonial territories. They developed their own identity and culture, and even ordered the A-340 before a "rationalization" merged them (along with the French interior carrier "Air Inter") into Air France. Some said that for the money, they offered better service.

TMccrury · Sat Mar 10, 2018 4:11 am

At one time, UTA, flew from JKT-DPS-NOU-PPT-LAX as well. My mother flew that route around 1977 or so on a DC10. I was a wee lad at the time. I don't remember if there was another stop along the route or not. She overnighted in either NOU or PPT but its been a long time ago so I don't fully remember.

eta unknown · Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:41 am

UTA service was quite good and very French (good if you appreciate that, bad if you don't). There was also a NOU based all economy DC-10 that flew NOU-NRT twice a week, then once weekly NOU-SYD-NOU-AKL-PPT-HNL return. Somewhere on youtube there's a cockpit video of the NRT-NOU flight.

Their final slogan was "it's always good when UTA flies there"
C'est toujours mieux quand UTA Y va
(say too-zhur m'yuh kahn ooh-tah-ah E vah)

Gemuser · Sat Mar 10, 2018 5:54 am

eta unknown wrote:
UTA service was quite good and very French (good if you appreciate that, bad if you don't). There was also a NOU based all economy DC-10 that flew NOU-NRT twice a week, then once weekly NOU-SYD-NOU-AKL-PPT-HNL return. Somewhere on youtube there's a cockpit video of the NRT-NOU flight.

Their final slogan was "it's always good when UTA flies there"
C'est toujours mieux quand UTA Y va
(say too-zhur m'yuh kahn ooh-tah-ah E vah)

They also had a Caravelle based in NOU in the 1970s, at least, for Pacific Island, Australia & NZ services.

Gemuser

716131 · Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:27 am

What is UTA anyway?

RalXWB · Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:52 am

SQ789 wrote:
What is UTA anyway?

An Airline :old:

jupiter2 · Sat Mar 10, 2018 8:01 am

RalXWB wrote:
SQ789 wrote:
What is UTA anyway?

An Airline

Was an airline :spin:

Probably had the original Euro White scheme as well, with the lovely green doors.

eta unknown · Sat Mar 10, 2018 8:30 am

Original euro white AND billboard titles!

716131 · Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:05 am

RalXWB wrote:
SQ789 wrote:
What is UTA anyway?

An Airline

Union de Transports Aériens?

jupiter2 · Sat Mar 10, 2018 9:48 am

SQ789 wrote:
RalXWB wrote:
SQ789 wrote:
What is UTA anyway?

An Airline

Union de Transports Aériens?

Yes, that's correct. Were later absorbed into Air France who took over the flights to Noumea, Australia, etc.

SpaceshipDC10 · Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:10 am

gadFly wrote:
It came out of an airline called "Transports Aériens Internationaux" --TAI, (International Air Transport) that was tasked with servicing French colonial territories.

Almost. UTA was born following the merger of TAI with UAT in 1963.

TAI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport ... ntinentaux
UAT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_A%C ... _Transport

UTA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_de_ ... C3%A9riens

mig17 · Sat Mar 10, 2018 12:14 pm

Without the green doors, their livery was close to Joon or the new Lufthansa. By the way, each time I see the 747-8 of Lufthansa now I see the 747-400 I use to take to Singapore as a child ...

Cunard · Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:18 am

SQ789 wrote:
What is UTA anyway?

If you had clearly read the nine posts before yours you would have realised that!

I always liked the UTA livery especially on their DC10 and B747 and have fond memories of seeing them at CDG in the 1980's. UTA always reminded me of a French equivalent to to the once great BCAL that was also absorbed into the national flag carrier in a similar way to UTA.

SQ789 I guess your thinking ''what is BCAL anyway''!

SpaceshipDC10 · Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:45 am

Cunard wrote:
I always liked the UTA livery especially on their DC10 and B747

Here's one interesting appearing on an as needed basis before it had its own dedicated fleet.

jmchevallier · Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:09 pm

I flew frequently on UTA DC10-30, then B742, 743 and 744, and to my knowledge they never flew to DEN, although there were possible connections thru SIN and JKT.

MalevTU134 · Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:24 pm

jmchevallier wrote:
I flew frequently on UTA DC10-30, then B742, 743 and 744, and to my knowledge they never flew to DEN, although there were possible connections thru SIN and JKT.

DEN as Denver? You mean DPS- Denpasar?

Super88 · Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:41 pm

really liked UTA color scheme....Lufthansa could add yellow door's, that would look neat and add a pop to the new scheme

69bug · Mon Mar 12, 2018 4:27 am

UTA was the only French carrier into SIN in the late 80s, early 90s. We only saw AF aircraft after the merger (or was it bought) with AF. The earlier routes mentioned with stops in BAH was with the 747-300 series. When the 747-400 came in it was supposed to remove the BAH stop but as they didn't have enough 744s some aircraft went thru BAH and some did not. It was quite random which flights would stop in BAH, must have been a nightmare from a flight planning perspective.

It was a lovely livery and the 743 and 744 aircraft had 'BIG BOSS' just behind the cockpit windows.

In the early 90s, AF72 went into the water at Papeete Fa'a'a airport. Interestingly it was an ex-UTA route and the aircraft was an ex UTA airplane (F-GITA).

Anilv

hz747300 · Mon Mar 12, 2018 6:49 am

I liked the livery too, especially the bright green doors. I agree, LH's new livery could use something like that to spice it up.

TheFlyingDisk · Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:38 am

If I recall correctly, UTA flew to KUL as well back in those days. How is it that they're able to make it work while AF couldn't?

mig17 · Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:53 am

69bug wrote:
UTA was the only French carrier into SIN in the late 80s, early 90s. We only saw AF aircraft after the merger (or was it bought) with AF. The earlier routes mentioned with stops in BAH was with the 747-300 series. When the 747-400 came in it was supposed to remove the BAH stop but as they didn't have enough 744s some aircraft went thru BAH and some did not. It was quite random which flights would stop in BAH, must have been a nightmare from a flight planning perspective.

It was a lovely livery and the 743 and 744 aircraft had 'BIG BOSS' just behind the cockpit windows.

In the early 90s, AF72 went into the water at Papeete Fa'a'a airport. Interestingly it was an ex-UTA route and the aircraft was an ex UTA airplane (F-GITA).

Anilv

F-GITA(nique) never was an UTA 744. They had only 2 of them, F-GEXA & F-GEXB. When they integrated AF group, they already had choosen the 343 as their new long hauler. AF keeped the 2 744 and also 2 743, F-GETA & F-GETB, for a long time
time after that.

eta unknown · Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:30 am

THE KUL routing was CDG-MCT-CMB-KUL. Nobody said it was necessarily profitable.

69bug · Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:52 am

F-GITA(nique) never was an UTA 744. They had only 2 of them, F-GEXA & F-GEXB. When they integrated AF group, they already had choosen the 343 as their new long hauler. AF keeped the 2 744 and also 2 743, F-GETA & F-GETB, for a long time
time after that.

Thanks Mig17..I must have gotten them mixed up. I seem to remember they had combis as well?

bug

aeromoe · Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:12 am

On a side note, during the DC-10 grounding in late spring/summer 1979 UTA (and KLM) flew DC-8s into LAX as temporary DC-10 replacements. May have been other fleet swaps as well during that time but during my one June 1979 photo day trip I added both to my blossoming photo library. UTA with a -62 and KLM with a -63.

Flyingsottsman · Tue Mar 13, 2018 9:48 am

I remember seeing a UTA 743 take of from SIN in December of 1985 we were 2 aircraft behind it, They did serve Melbourne in 1990 they started flight here but it did not last long as they were taken over by Air France and they pulled right out of Australia. The livery they had was on of the most spectacular livery's flying around and I bet if they were still flying today that livery would still be used. They were the original of the Euro white with the coloured tail, now every airline has adopted that style of livery, Qantas. Iberia. Lantam and now LH. What was UTA like to fly with compared to Air France back then?

Cunard · Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:58 am

hz747300 wrote:
I liked the livery too, especially the bright green doors. I agree, LH's new livery could use something like that to spice it up.

It hadn't even crossed my mind before but I totally agree with you wouldn't the new Lufthansa livery look smart with if they had their doors painted yellow in a similar way to the former UTA :-)

DABYT · Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:44 am

Here’s a route map from their 1979 timetable which only shows Jakarta but no Denpasar. I doubt they actually flew into DPS before or after 1979. At least I couldn’t find anything...

TR · Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:33 pm

69bug wrote:
F-GITA(nique) never was an UTA 744. They had only 2 of them, F-GEXA & F-GEXB. When they integrated AF group, they already had choosen the 343 as their new long hauler. AF keeped the 2 744 and also 2 743, F-GETA & F-GETB, for a long time
time after that.

Thanks Mig17..I must have gotten them mixed up. I seem to remember they had combis as well?

bug

F-GEXA was an all pax 744. F-GEXB was a 744 combi. F-GETA & F-GETB were both 743 combis. I recall that UTA had a very special combi layout with room for 11 pallets rather than standard 7. Believe this was only on 742SUD combis but could be the 743 combis as well.

MalevTU134 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:39 pm

DABYT wrote:
Here’s a route map from their 1979 timetable which only shows Jakarta but no Denpasar. I doubt they actually flew into DPS before or after 1979. At least I couldn’t find anything...

No Africa network at all in 1979??

Cunard · Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:51 pm

UTA was very active in Africa in 1979 but that map only shows the Asian and Pacific route network.

DABYT · Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:59 pm

Here's the 1979 Africa route map:

MalevTU134 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 5:26 pm

Double post

MalevTU134 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 5:26 pm

DABYT wrote:
Here's the 1979 Africa route map:

Thank you!! That's what I thought, a really impressive African network, with intra-African segments. I'm sure they had traffic rights on most of them, given France's excellent influence in its former colonies. What really surprises me, though, is Dakar-New York.... was this prior to RK (Air Afrique)?

Sorry for the off-topic...and thanks again!!!

DABYT · Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:17 am

MalevTU134 wrote:
Thank you!! That's what I thought, a really impressive African network, with intra-African segments. I'm sure they had traffic rights on most of them, given France's excellent influence in its former colonies. What really surprises me, though, is Dakar-New York.... was this prior to RK (Air Afrique)?

Sorry for the off-topic...and thanks again!!!

Seems New York - Dakar was an Air Afrique flight with DC-8 providing first class and economy service. Timetable shows RK50 leaving New York at 22:30.

MalevTU134 · Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:47 am

DABYT wrote:
MalevTU134 wrote:
Thank you!! That's what I thought, a really impressive African network, with intra-African segments. I'm sure they had traffic rights on most of them, given France's excellent influence in its former colonies. What really surprises me, though, is Dakar-New York.... was this prior to RK (Air Afrique)?

Sorry for the off-topic...and thanks again!!!

Seems New York - Dakar was an Air Afrique flight with DC-8 providing first class and economy service. Timetable shows RK50 leaving New York at 22:30.

Thanks again! So most of those Africa routes are actually Air Afrique routes? Did UT and RK have a commercial collaboration? Same owners? As far as I know, Air Afrique was owned by half a dozen or so governments in Western and Central Africa, all former French colonies...

Cunard · Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:40 pm

Air Afrique was originally conceived in February 1960 by Air France and Union Aeromaritime de Transport (UTA) to take over the regional services of these two airlines that they operated to in Africa. The new company was registered in September 1960 as Air Afrique.

In October 1960 eleven heads of states of many of those countries that the new airline would serve recommend a constitution for a multi national company and the airline was officially formed.

Ownership changed over the latter years with many of the original countries pulling out but Air Afrique and UTA maintained a close working arrangement throughout their existence with Air Afrique flying most of the regional destinations connecting with UTA flights at major hubs such as Abidjan and Dakar.

MalevTU134 · Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:46 pm

Cunard wrote:
Air Afrique was originally conceived in February 1960 by Air France and Union Aeromaritime de Transport (UTA) to take over the regional services of these two airlines that they operated to in Africa. The new company was registered in September 1960 as Air Afrique.

In October 1960 eleven heads of states of many of those countries that the new airline would serve recommend a constitution for a multi national company and the airline was officially formed.

Ownership changed over the latter years with many of the original countries pulling out but Air Afrique and UTA maintained a close working arrangement throughout their existence with Air Afrique flying most of the regional destinations connecting with UTA flights at major hubs such as Abidjan and Dakar.

Thank you!! Interesting facts.

superjeff · Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:55 pm

into the mid-late 1960's, UTA's predecessor TAI flew into HNL enroute to Papeete and further into the French Pacific, with DC8-51's, twice a week. After the merger with UAT to form UTA, they discontinued the HNL stop and flew nonstop LAX-PPT, on to Noumea and point beyond.

superjeff · Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:59 pm

into the mid-late 1960's, UTA's predecessor TAI flew into HNL enroute to Papeete and further into the French Pacific, with DC8-51's, twice a week. After the merger with UAT to form UTA, they discontinued the HNL stop and flew nonstop LAX-PPT, on to Noumea and points beyond.

744forever · Thu Mar 15, 2018 3:00 pm

They at least flew to NOU in the early 90’s at the time of the merger with AF.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... e-network/

Cunard · Thu Mar 15, 2018 4:01 pm

744forever wrote:
They at least flew to NOU in the early 90’s at the time of the merger with AF.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... e-network/

That we already know as it's already been discussed in previous posts at top of this thread!

SpaceshipDC10 · Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:12 pm

superjeff wrote:
into the mid-late 1960's, UTA's predecessor TAI flew into HNL enroute to Papeete and further into the French Pacific, with DC8-51's, twice a week. After the merger with UAT to form UTA, they discontinued the HNL stop and flew nonstop LAX-PPT, on to Noumea and points beyond.

TAI never had DC-8-50s, only -30s and I'm not sure whether they could have flown LAX-PPT nonstop.

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