Various airlines

In addition to the posts in the travel section on this blog, where some of the airlines from the films are described in more detail, a few other airlines with considerably less screen time (than for instance Pan Am or British Airways) will be covered here briefly.

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.

Royal Air Maroc - Boeing 727

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Air France

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 

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.

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.

KLM and SAS

Air France Concorde to Rio

It's time again for another post in the travel section. When Bond takes "two weeks leave of abcence" on M's orders, he unofficially stays on the Drax assignment and travels to Rio. Bond arrives on the Air France Concorde at Galeão International Airport.

How do you kill five hours in Rio? If, you don´t samba...

The tail number on Bond's Concorde is F-BVFA and this was the first Concorde delivered to Air France in 1975. This plane made its scheduled maiden-flight, and the very first commercial passenger flight with Air France, on 21 January 1976. An interesting fact is that the maiden-flight was made from Paris Charles de Gaulle, via Dakar, to Rio. The very same route that Bond is traveling in the film. Air France had two weekly flights from Paris to Rio until 1982.

Welcome to Rio Mr. Bond.

An airplane from Varig, the leading Brazilian airline at the time, is visible in the background

A chauffeur driven Rolls Royce silver shadow picks up Bond at the airport and drives him to his hotel. Apparently the luggage was gone ahead... It becomes apparent that Dr. Goodhead is also flying with Air France to Rio when Bond finds her plane ticket when snooping around her hotel suite in Venice. If the CIA could afford the Concorde for their agent as well as Mi6 is unknown. (Jaws is flying with British airways to Rio as his flight number is called out to be "BA128 to Rio de Janeiro" at the airport when Jaws is walking through the metal detector.)

Sir Roger's Concorde, F-BVFA that was used in the film, made its final flight from Charles de Gaulle to Washington Dulles airport and the Smithsonian Air and Space museum on the 12th of June 2003, where it still can be seen today, retired.  The most beautiful aircraft ever built, and regarded by many as an aviation icon, made its final commercial flight (with British Airways) on 24 October from JFK to Heathrow. It touched down for the very last time on 26 November 2003.



*Concorde was the result of an Anglo-French government cooperation that started in the 60's. Combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and The British Aircraft Cooperation it entered service in 1976 and continued commercial flights for 27 years. It was a supersonic turbojet-powered passenger airliner that flew transatlantic flights in less than half the time of other airliners. Sadly, due to low passenger numbers after the only crash on 25 July 2000, the decrease in air travel after 11 September 2001 and rising maintenance costs, both British Airways and Air France ended their Concorde flights in 2003.*

The Concorde will be greatly missed

From Sweden
with love...

Grattis N!

*wikipedia*