Long haul airlines that have never flown to the United States

American 767 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 6:53 pm

Hi everyone and happy holidays.

Can you think of long haul airlines, past or present, that never served any destinations in the US?
Two I can think of are Air Zaire and Air Koryo of North Korea.
Any others as far as you know?

Cubsrule · Sat Dec 24, 2016 6:56 pm

MaxTrimm · Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:03 pm

Air Namibia!

MalevTU134 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:32 pm

DT? Transportes Aéreas de Angola
UU. Air Austral
MK
HM
UL?
RB?
KQ
UM
LAM Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique
MD
GN
Cameroon Airlines?
WY
BI
RA
IY
Alyemda
IF? Interflug
LZ? Balkan Airlines
VN!!

Cipango · Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:34 pm

Air Asia X comes to mind.

AH45 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:36 pm

airzim · Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:37 pm

Air Algerie
Air Zimbabwe
TAAG
Air Mauritius
Air Seychelles
Sri Lankan
Kenya Airways

Lots

The777Man · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:02 pm

MalevTU134 wrote:
DT? Transportes Aéreas de Angola
UU. Air Austral
MK
HM
UL?
RB?
KQ
UM
LAM Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique
MD
GN
Cameroon Airlines?
WY
BI
RA
IY
Alyemda
IF? Interflug
LZ? Balkan Airlines
VN!!

I wouldn't call some of those long haul carriers (RA, Alyemda-DY).

IF and LZ did fly to JFK as I recall and so did RB.

MalevTU134 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:11 pm

The777Man wrote:
MalevTU134 wrote:
DT? Transportes Aéreas de Angola
UU. Air Austral
MK
HM
UL?
RB?
KQ
UM
LAM Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique
MD
GN
Cameroon Airlines?
WY
BI
RA
IY
Alyemda
IF? Interflug
LZ? Balkan Airlines
VN!!

I wouldn't call some of those long haul carriers (RA, Alyemda-DY).

IF and LZ did fly to JFK as I recall and so did RB.

RA used to fly KTM-LON. How is that not long haul?

Are you sure about IF?

PatrickZ80 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:24 pm

Thai Airways never flew to the USA.

MalevTU134 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:26 pm

PatrickZ80 wrote:
Thai Airways never flew to the USA.

Sure they did. Just dropped LAX a few (maybe 6-7) years ago

behramjee · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:28 pm

PatrickZ80 wrote:
Thai Airways never flew to the USA.

wrong TG flew to LAX and JFK !

what comes immediately to my mind is Vietnam Airlines who has never in the past too along with Oman Air, Sri Lankan and Kenya Airways.

The777Man · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:36 pm

IF flew A313s to JFK in the later 1980s.

I wasn't aware RA flew to LON so I guess that would qualify them on the list but they had no suitable aircraft to fly to the US.

You can and TU to the list since they have 332s now and fly to Canada.

The777Man

MalevTU134 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:41 pm

The777Man wrote:
IF flew A313s to JFK in the later 1980s.

I wasn't aware RA flew to LON so I guess that would qualify them on the list but they had no suitable aircraft to fly to the US.

You can and TU to the list since they have 332s now and fly to Canada.

The777Man

I know it's not 100% accurate, but the IF Wikipedia page shows nothing about US flights.

RA had 757s, so definitely capable of flying LON-US, had they wanted to (traffic rights notwithstanding). Flights to LON were through DXB, so it would have been with 2 stops, but heck, that's what BG did on some of their JFK flights, too.

Btw, RA flew to FRA, too.

MalevTU134 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:53 pm

The777Man wrote:
IF flew A313s to JFK in the later 1980s.

I wasn't aware RA flew to LON so I guess that would qualify them on the list but they had no suitable aircraft to fly to the US.

You can and TU to the list since they have 332s now and fly to Canada.

The777Man

1989 IF route map. This was the year they got their 2 A313s

hoons90 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:56 pm

Aircalin
Air Astana
MIAT
Ansett Australia

MalevTU134 wrote:
PatrickZ80 wrote:
Thai Airways never flew to the USA.

Sure they did. Just dropped LAX a few (maybe 6-7) years ago

Last year, in fact.

MalevTU134 · Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:58 pm

Oh, and how about MIAT Mongolian and Ariana Afghan Airlines ?

DFW789ER · Sat Dec 24, 2016 9:39 pm

behramjee wrote:
PatrickZ80 wrote:
Thai Airways never flew to the USA.

wrong TG flew to LAX and JFK !

what comes immediately to my mind is Vietnam Airlines who has never in the past too along with Oman Air, Sri Lankan and Kenya Airways.

In the 80's, TG also flew DFW-SEA-NRT-BKK, maybe 3x weekly.

Kilopond · Sat Dec 24, 2016 10:00 pm

MalevTU134 wrote:
[...]I know it's not 100% accurate, but the IF Wikipedia page shows nothing about US flights.[...]

You did a great job by compiling the above list!

And no, IF (as such) never operated to points in the US. They just wet-leased their A310 to Lufthansa that briefly operated it as flight LH406 SXF-JFK. But not as an Interflug flight!

ChrisFallon77 · Sun Dec 25, 2016 12:29 am

Turkmenistan. I have only seen them at NYC area airports as GOVT/VIP. Sweet looking 77L

MalevTU134 · Sun Dec 25, 2016 4:38 am

Did ConViasa ever fly to the US?

zrs70 · Sun Dec 25, 2016 2:24 pm

How about Cubana? I suppose that before the 1961/2 embargo, there was service to the US. But did they have long haul service at the time?

Adipocere · Sun Dec 25, 2016 2:53 pm

Indian Airlines

zrs70 · Sun Dec 25, 2016 3:29 pm

Air Greenland?

mozart · Sun Dec 25, 2016 8:59 pm

Luxavia
Air Inter
Air Gabon
Cameroon Airlines
PLUNA?

Cyrus · Mon Dec 26, 2016 1:38 am

Mahan Air for sure!

attyavgeek · Mon Dec 26, 2016 5:17 am

Jet Airways, Shaheen, Garuda Indonesia, Oman Air, Gulf Air

mozart · Mon Dec 26, 2016 6:22 am

Jet Airways and Garuda both had flights to the US. Garuda served LAX (at one point with an interesting routing Jakarta-Denpasar-Biak-Honolulu-Los Angeles), Jet Airways had its famous scissor hub at Brussels

mozart · Mon Dec 26, 2016 6:25 am

Also never served the US, despite long haul flights to other destinations :

Air Caraïbes
Cebu Pacific
Dragonair
TACV

MHG · Mon Jan 02, 2017 6:50 pm

mozart wrote:
Also never served the US, despite long haul flights to other destinations :

Air Caraïbes
Cebu Pacific
Dragonair
TACV

Cebu Pacific is debatable ...
They do serve MNL-GUM now. (but I guess you probably had the continental U.S. in mind ...)

SRQKEF · Mon Jan 02, 2017 7:22 pm

zrs70 wrote:
Air Greenland?

1. Their longest route, SFJ-CPH is around 4 hours so absolutely not long haul.

2. GL briefly operated SFJ-BWI in 2007, so they've flown to the US.

Regards!
Sveinn

SRQKEF · Mon Jan 02, 2017 7:58 pm

mozart wrote:
Also never served the US, despite long haul flights to other destinations :

Air Caraïbes
Cebu Pacific
Dragonair
TACV

TACV fly to PVD and used to serve BOS IIRC.

lesfalls · Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:47 pm

MalevTU134 wrote:
DT? Transportes Aéreas de Angola
UU. Air Austral
MK
HM
UL?
RB?
KQ
UM
LAM Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique
MD
GN
Cameroon Airlines?
WY
BI
RA
IY
Alyemda
IF? Interflug
LZ? Balkan Airlines
VN!!

I think LZ did serve JFK before.

lesfalls · Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:49 pm

attyavgeek wrote:
Jet Airways, Shaheen, Garuda Indonesia, Oman Air, Gulf Air

Gulf air used to fly via GVA to JFK I think. It ended after the UAE and Oman took their shares out of Gulf as now they had to compete against 2 new airlines(later 3).

IAHWorldflyer · Wed Jan 04, 2017 4:24 pm

Gulf Air also flew into IAH back in the late '70's to early '80's. I recall seeing their L-1011's parked there. There must have been an intermediate stop, but I don't know where.

aeromoe · Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:34 am

@ IAHWorldflyer: "Gulf Air also flew into IAH back in the late '70's to early '80's. I recall seeing their L-1011's parked there" Could you be thinking of Alia Royal Jordanian? They flew there with 747s then possibly later L-1011s after they got them.

IAHWorldflyer · Sat Jan 07, 2017 6:15 pm

Aeromoe, It could be that I saw Royal Jordanian Tristars on the tarmac back in the day. I didn't realize they ever even flew to IAH.
Gulf Air, it turns out started service from IAH to BAH with a stop at JFK on October 29th, 1995 using A340-300 equipment 4x a week. Link to press release is below.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/GULF+AIR ... a017448244

sierra3tango · Sun Jan 08, 2017 2:52 pm

Fairly sure East African Airways never served the USA

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