Plans were nally shelved due to the
subsequent merger with Air France. The
company was also hit when French transport
minister Michel Delebarre partially reversed
the government’s relaxed policy on allocating
traffic rights to the three main airlines.
He denied UTA the right to y non-stop
from Paris to New York Newark in direct
competition with Air France and even to deny
the right to expand its services anywhere in
the USA. The aim was to protect Air France’s
position as the country’s dominant scheduled
carrier.
This goal could be achieved by making
UTA a less attractive takeover target for its
foreign rivals. Indeed, the French government
feared that Air France’s relative small size
(compared with European giants such as
British Airways and Lufthansa), combined
with a fragmented French long-haul network,
would put Air France at a commercial
disadvantage in a liberalised air transport
market which was on the horizon.
Air France, UTA and Air Inter were told it
would be better to co-operate rather than to
compete.
UTA’s operational history was blighted
by several incidents. The rst major one
occurred on October 2, 1964, a DC-6 crashed
into Mount Alcazaba in Spain when operating
a scheduled ight from Palma to Port Etienne
in Mauritania. There were no survivors among
the 80 people on board (seven crew
and 73 passengers).
Then on September 19,
1989, a bomb explodedon UTA ight 772 operating between
Brazzaville-N’Djamena-Paris 46mins after
take off from N’Djamena. All 170 people
on board were killed. French investigators
determined that a bomb in a suitcase had
been loaded on the aircraft and evidence
pointed to the involvement of six Libyans.
A French court found the Libyans guilty in
their absence and sentenced them to life
inprisonment.MERGER
On January 12, 1990, UTA along with Air
Inter and Air France, became part of an
enlarged Air France group. Air France
agreed to buy 54.58% of UTA for 3.8bn
French francs from Chargeurs Réunis, which
owned 82.9% of UTA.
In buying UTA, Air France acquired Air Inter
in which UTA owned 35.8%. Added to Air
France’s 37% stake, this gave the ag carrier
full control of the domestic airline.
European competition commissioner,
Sir Leon Brittan, investigated, believing the
move was a breach of competition rules
by the French government, which had rst
denied UTA the rights to open European
routes and then also denied it the rights to
expand in the USA.
The European Commission ruled that a
co-operative agreement between Air France
and Air Inter was anti-competitive because it
called for sharing revenue, pro t and losses.
The EU’s challenge was removed after
political bargaining.
On December 18, 1992, UTA ceasedto exist as a legal entity within the Groupe
Air France after Air France managed to buy
the remaining stock capital from private
shareholders. At the same time, the ag
carrier was approaching a deal to take a
controlling stake in the Belgian national
carrier Sabena.
Air France was attempting to speed up
its recovery from losses, in time for the
liberalisation of air transport in the European
Community. Consolidation of UTA’s pro ts
into Air France’s loss-making balance sheet
was also one of the goals of this operation.
The merger saved the group around
£50m by eliminating duplicate activities.
Staff reductions amounted to 3,000 from a
combined workforce of 46,000. It also led to
Air France becoming Europe’s second largest
carrier, just behind British Airways.
Unfortunately for Air France, the
amalgamation did not result in a turn-around
of its balance sheet and the company
remained a ‘sick’ member of the European
aviation community, constantly looking for
mergers with pro t-making airlines in order to
clean-up its own balance sheet.
Air France joined the worldwide trend
to join with complementary airlines to give
passengers easy access to destinations
served by partners and became a founder
member of SkyTeam in 2000. Subsequently,
it merged with KLM creating the new
company, Air France KLM, listed on the
Amsterdam and Paris stock exchanges. It
has become the largest European airline
group.http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 61Above: UTA Boeing 747-228F cargo aircraft at Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong. Wikimedia Commons/FotoNoir
Bottom: The Boeing 747 was an aircraft that UTA hoped would enable it to compete with major world airlines. Bob O’Brien Collection58-61_utaDC.mfDC.indd 61 05/01/2018 17:03