Royal Air Maroc
In The Living Daylights, two Boeing aircraft, a 727 and a 767 from the Moroccan airline 'Royal Air Maroc' (RAM) are seen in the background at the airport in Tangier. This scene was actually filmed at the airport in Ouarzazate, in the south western part of Morocco and not Tangier. I do not know if RAM had a promotional collaboration with the film production, but it is likely since the two RAM airplanes are featured rather prominently in the film.
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| Royal Air Maroc - Boeing 727 |
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Air France
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| A brand new Eurocopter EC 135 (worth £1.6 million at the time) had been flown in from France |
When Q delivers the BMW to Bond at the airport in Hamburg, Bond takes it for a test drive in an adjacent hangar. A BAe 146 airplane from Air France Express, belonging to 'CityJet' or 'Jersey European Airways', is seen in the background. CityJet is a regional (Irish) airline that operated on the Paris - London route on behalf of Air France at the time of filming Tomorrow Never Dies. The airline is still in operation today and Air France was its main owner between 2002 and 2014 when it was sold to Intro Aviation. Jersey European Airways, today known as 'Flybe', is the largest independent regional airline in Europe, based in Exeter, that also had a code share agreement with Air France at the time of filming.
The British Aerospace 146 (BAe 146) is a short-haul airliner that was manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace from 1983 until 2002. Another BAe 146 airplane belonging to 'Titan Airways', which receives maintenance work, is also seen behind Bond and Q in the hangar.
An advertising poster for Air France is also visible at the entrance of Hotel Oriental, which is Bond's hotel in Bangkok in The Man With the Golden Gun. The text on the poster is promoting Air France's new airplanes and reads: "Europe and Far East - 5 Super B747's, 2 Boeing 707".
In Dr. No, a small flag with the winged seahorse, which is the logo of Air France, is visible on the reception desk at Bond's hotel in Jamaica, along with a few other props including Air India and Alitalia.A Concorde from Air France also featured rather prominently in Moonraker as Bond lands in Rio de Janeiro.
KLM and Scandinavian Airlines
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| West Berlin - The KLM office seen in the background |
In Octopussy, Bond, posing as Charles Morton, and M are travelling down Kurfürstendamm in West Berlin. The headquarters or a travel agent belonging to KLM - Royal Dutch Airlines - is seen very briefly behind Bond and M through the rear window. This KLM travel agent was located at the intersection of Joachimsthaler Strasse 39-40 and Kurfürstendamm at the time of filming in 1983. Today the Azimut Hotel is housed in that building.
The KLM logo would also feature in Never Say Never Again, as seen below.
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| KLM in front of Nicole and Bond - The SAS logotype is seen on the wall to the right |
Produced in the same year as Octopussy, the logotype of KLM was visible above a travel desk at Nice airport in Never Say Never Again, where Bond meets with agent 326, after arriving from the Bahamas. In the same scene, a travel desk belonging to SAS - Scandinavian Airlines System - with the old Viking logo on the wall can be seen in the background.
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| KLM and SAS |
Hi, it's the guy from the Lufthansa 707 again. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI have just last week looked for this Air France BAe 146 for my next post on James Bond aircraft and models. Although on the Movie Plane Database they write that this BAe 146 is from CityJet that cannot be said with certainty. This plane is lettered for "Air France express" as only those with the added express have the Air France titles behind the wings on the starboard side. There were 146s from more airlines with Air France express livery - not only CityJet but also Eurowings or Jersey European Airways (and maybe more). Eurowings can be ruled out because their German flag near the registration should be visible in this photo but Jersey European is just as likely as CityJet.
I have read elsewhere that this sequence was filmed in Titan Airways' hangar 7 at London Stansted airport which is plausible with the Titan plane visible during maintenance. However, Titan Airways is not mentioned in the end credits.
Thank you for your great blog!
Peter
Hi,
DeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts! Interesting, but we still cannot come to any firm conclusions then. Yes, the scenes were indeed filmed at Stansted.
Perhaps it is possible to check whether any other airline, besides CityJet, flew to Stansted?
Thanks and kind regards!
Hi, thanks for your reply! I have in the meantime looked more closely at the BAe 146 and have only found one single CityJet 146 with Air France express livery (again: those are the only ones where "Air France" is located behind the wing on the starboard side - all others have "Air France" in front) which would fit in the TND timeline (1996/97): G-OWLD (from 7/97 EI-CNQ, still with AF express). All other 146s with express are from either Eurowings (D-AEWD, AEWE) or Jersey European (G-JEAL, JEAO, JEAR, JEAS, JEAT - maybe more) and can be found in this livery in 1996 or 1997. I rule out Eurowings because of the German flag which would show up even on the background plane. But it seems more likely now that this is a Jersey European aircraft, not the one from CityJet. But as you say, not a firm conclusion - although more evidence than just saying it's from CityJet. The Titan 146 G-ZAPL got this registration on 18/4/97, providing an earliest date for the shooting of this scene (ironically, G-ZAPL went on to CityJet in 1999 as EI-PAT and then too wore the Air France livery - without "express" though).
ReplyDeleteI don't have a 1997 Air France timetable but from photos taken at Stansted it doesn't look like AF operated scheduled flights from this airport (I only have found photos of a 747 freighter and a Concorde). I guess the 146 was there for maintenance. Maybe Titan Airways also provided maintenance services for other BAe 146 users and they moved the AF plane outside the hangar for a few hours to have ample space for filming? Just speculating, of course ... ;-)
Kind regards,
Peter
Thank you for that!
DeleteI have amended the text accordingly. However, from what I can make out from the Bluray, the registration number is likely in a 2-3 letter configuration (it is of course very unclear), which would speak for the EI-CNQ registration. I will look for the filming dates of the Stansted scene and see if we can make anything out of it.
Regards,
R
Filming at Stansted Airport took place on 19 April 1997.
DeleteI have to say that I find this very enjoyable; searching for credible sources and checking facts - I'm feeling like an archaeologist. ;-)
ReplyDeleteEI-CNQ was the registration following G-OWLD from 2 July 1997, so on 19 April there was no EI-CNQ yet - there is even an AAIB accident report for G-OWLD of an incident (a false engine fire alarm) on 29 May 1997, so without doubt this registration was still active.
You say that the registration looks more like a 2-3 letter configuration. But EI isn't really much wider than a G. However, the empty space of the letter J - as in G-JEA* - may look, when blurred, like the position of the dash? I have also now ruled out G-JEAL, JEAO, JEAT as those were either BAe 146-100 or -300. I wasn't sure at first but the pictured plane is certainly a -200, leaving only G-OWLD, -JEAR, JEAS (although there may be others where no photos are available online).
Kind regards
Peter
Haha how do you know these things?! :)
DeleteThank you very much for your efforts anyway. Your theory about the J may very well be true.
G-JEAR or JEAS seems likely.
Feel free to get back to me if you find anything else.
Regards,
R
How do I know these things? - I guess it's the same magic that lets you know the filming date at Stansted? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI have no access to secret information - all my findings can be repeated just using Google. In this case I noticed two different Air France BAe 146 models that were listed on ebay. Then I learned that this company Jet-X made nine (!) different Air France liveries:
1/400 Air France BAe-146 Assortment (9 piece set) ~100pcs Production Run
- (1ea) JET-JXM205 1/400 Air France BAe-146-200 ~ EI-PAT "City Jet"
- (1ea) JET-JXM206 1/400 Air France BAe-146-100 ~ G-JEAO "British European"
- (1ea) JET-JXM207 1/400 Air France BAe-146-200 ~ G-GEAR "Jersey European"
- (1ea) JET-JXM208 1/400 Air France BAe-146-200 ~ G-JEAS "British European flybe"
- (1ea) JET-JXM209 1/400 Air France BAe-146-100 ~ G-JEAT "British European"
- (1ea) JET-JXM210 1/400 Air France BAe-146-200 ~ G-JEAR "British European"
- (1ea) JET-JXM211 1/400 Air France BAe-146-200 ~ F-GOMA "Air Jet"
- (1ea) JET-JXM212 1/400 Air France BAe-146-100 ~ G-JEAO "Air France express"
- (1ea) JET-JXM213 1/400 Air France BAe-146-200 ~ D-AEWD "Air France express"
With only 100 pieces each produced ten years ago, the right one would be almost impossible to find, so I just wanted to know which one of those two on ebay would be closer to the film-seen plane. impdb.org listed the plane as being from CityJet but I was not so sure (as they are not always right - e.g. the DAF 707 is identified as a 707-430 but it is a -330, and I don't know how they can list it as a -430 without knowing the registration or seeing the engines).
Then I looked for photos taken in the year of filming on airliners.net and jetphotos.net. How many of an aircraft type were operated by a certain airline can be found on airfleets.net - with the year of filming the lists can narrowed down to just a few planes, and these can also be checked at airframes.org and aerotransport.org - sometimes dates are different on the various sites -, and just googling for the registrations can bring up other pictures and interesting facts like the accident report for G-OWLD. BTW, I have in the meantime ruled out G-JEAS too as this plane was all white in 1997 and wore the Air France express livery only later, in 1998 and 1999. So, I am quite sure it was Jersey European's G-JEAR in the film, with a small possibility left for CityJet's G-OWLD.
Regards,
Peter
PS: Different post but while I am at it - Connery's Hertz rental car was a Ford Galaxie (not Galaxy, that was Ford's later minivan). :-)