Coventry Airport; 15 Jul 08

Coventry Airport is the home of Air Atlantique, and their varied collection of aircraft. The Air Atlantique historic flight operates a collection of historic types, available for air displays and charter work. One of the stalwarts of the fleet has been the DC-3, and several are operated. These have been used in the past for charter flights, however, new EU legislation, has called for costly and complicated modifications to be made to these old aircraft to permit their continued carriage of passengers.

Due to the cost of implementing these modifications, Air Atlantique has made the difficult decision to no longer operate passenger flights in the DC-3. To mark the occasion, one of their aircraft conducted a "Farewell Tour" of many airports in the UK, culminating in a return to Conventry for the last DC-3 passenger flights to be undertaken in the UK.

The date for the last flights from Coventry was 15 Jul 08, and to mark the occasion, the public were allowed in to view the last flights. The DC-3 made several flights during the evening, the final one being in the company of Air Atlantique's magnificent DC-6, recently repainted in the classic colours of British Eagle.

Air Atlantique are still hopeful that the regulators will see sense, and issue an exemption for the DC-3, so that modifications (which include a lockable, reinforced cockpit door) will not be required, and the aircraft can continue to provide the public with an experience of how airline flying was in the 1940s.

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