Lionair was a

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

-based passenger airline that operated from 1988 to 1990 as a joint venture of

Cargolux Cargolux, legally ''Cargolux Airlines International S.A.'', is a Luxembourgian flag carrier cargo airline with its headquarters and hub at Luxembourg Airport. With a global network, it is one of the largest scheduled all-cargo airlines in Euro ...

and Luxair. The airline ceased all operations in 1990.

History

Lionair was created by

and the national airline of Luxembourg, Luxair, in 1988. The company obtained two former

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

Boeing 747-100 aircraft, converted them into a high density seating layout capable of carrying 492 passengers and re-registered them as LX-GCV and LX-FCV. Lionair won a major contract with the fast expanding British tour company

Airtours MyTravel Group plc was a British, global travel group headquartered in Rochdale, England. It was founded in 1972 as Airtours Group. The group included two in-house airlines, MyTravel Airways UK and MyTravel Airways Scandinavia, and various t ...

, operating long haul Caribbean and

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

routes. This was the start of an unusual arrangement with the use of various operating licences which the company needed to operate legally from the UK. Both of the Boeing 747s were deployed in the UK for the Airtours flying programme. The main base of Lionair was Manchester International Airport but the company also operated long-haul flights out of

London Stansted Airport London Stansted Airport is a tertiary international airport serving London, England, United Kingdom. It is located near Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, northeast of Central London. London Stansted serves over 160 destinations ac ...

. The company employed multinational flight deck crews and predominantly British and Irish cabin crew, some of whom came from the recently collapsed

Highland Express Airways Highland Express Airways was an airline based in Scotland. Its main base was at Glasgow Prestwick Airport. It ceased operations in 1987. History The airline was formed in 1984 by Randolph Fields and operated a daily transatlantic nonstop se ...

. Both aircraft had liveries of red, white and blue with the "winged Lionhead" logo on the tail fin. When operating the Caribbean routes to Puerto Plata,

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional) , webs ...

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

and Antigua, the company adopted the name ''Caribbean Airways The National Airline of Barbados'' for one of its aircraft for licensing reasons. For similar reasons, when operating the Orlando, Florida route, the sister 747 used name of the US airline

Orionair Orionair was a charter airline based in Valencia, Spain. History Orionair was established in 2004 and operated domestic and international services in Europe and to Tunisia. Its main base was Valencia Airport, with a hub at Madrid Barajas Intern ...

. This caused much confusion as some passengers thought they were flying with the (now defunct) British Charter airline Orion Airways of East Midlands. Lionair began to experience a string of delays due to aircraft technical issues, sometimes seeing its Airtours holiday passengers stranded for days. In 1989, Airtours decided to terminate its long-haul flying programme with the company. From spring 1989 Lionair flew charters for

Air France Air France (; formally ''Société Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global a ...

and UTA from Paris to destinations in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Reunion. By 1990, Lionair Luxembourg was defunct.

References

{{Airlines of Luxembourg Defunct airlines of Luxembourg Airlines established in 1988 Airlines disestablished in 1990 Luxembourgian companies established in 1988