UTA (Union de Transports Aériens)

UTA was France's largest private, independent airline, flying long-haul routes to Africa, Asia and the Pacific from 1963. Air France took control in January 1990, and UTA ceased to exist as a legal entity on 18 December 1992.

How it started

According to Wikipedia, UTA was formed by merging two private carriers, Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) and Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux (TAI). The merger was agreed in September 1961, and the new company came into being on 1 October 1963. It employed 4,900 people and inherited 35 aircraft: six jets and 29 piston-engined airliners. They were repainted in a livery combining UAT's blue and TAI's green.

Most of the inherited network was long-haul, linking France with West and Southern Africa. On 1 November 1963 UTA put DC-8 jets on its Paris routes to Lagos, Accra, Monrovia and Freetown. Its parent was the shipping group Chargeurs Réunis.

The heyday

UTA's creation coincided with a French policy dividing the world into separate spheres for UTA and Air France, so the two did not compete. UTA had the largest African network of any European airline, with up to 25 destinations. Its busiest route was Paris–Abidjan, flown daily. It also served the Gulf, South and Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Tahiti and Los Angeles. Wikipedia describes it as one of only four wholly privately owned long-haul scheduled airlines outside the United States.

The fleet stayed small because the routes were multi-stop and infrequent. It stood at about ten to twelve mainline aircraft for most of UTA's life. The 1978 timetable showed 18 aircraft, including six DC-10-30s, and in March 1986 the fleet was 13, made up of 747s and DC-10s. UTA was the second customer for the Boeing 747-300, taking the first aircraft built in March 1983. It also had two 747-200s converted to the stretched-upper-deck (SUD) layout. In 1987 it placed its first Airbus order, for six A340-300s.

Why it merged

The causes, broadly in order:

• Regulation loosened, then tightened. In 1986 the government relaxed the route split. UTA launched Paris–San Francisco in competition with Air France, which responded by extending Los Angeles flights to Papeete. That year UTA also lost its monopoly on Paris–Papeete to the charter airline Minerve. In 1988 the transport minister refused UTA a non-stop Paris–Newark route against Air France.
• A pilots' dispute. Plans for a short-haul European network, run by the subsidiary Aéromaritime, were hit by a dispute over lower pay scales. It ran from late 1988 to October 1989 and grounded both Aéromaritime and UTA.
• A national champion. The government wanted a larger French carrier able to face European Union liberalisation. Air France, Air Inter and UTA were encouraged to co-operate rather than compete.

UTA also suffered Flight 772, a DC-10 bombed over Niger on 19 September 1989, which killed all 170 people on board. Investigations and court cases implicated Libyan state actors.

The last flight

No final flight is documented in the sources we found. UTA became part of the enlarged Air France group on 12 January 1990, according to Wikipedia, citing The New York Times. It then continued for nearly three years as a subsidiary. The company ceased to exist as a legal entity on 18 December 1992. Our record gives 1992 as the merger year, but the takeover itself came in January 1990 and only the legal integration was completed in 1992.

What happened next

Air France took over UTA's long-haul business. It also inherited two of the three Boeing 767-300ERs ordered on behalf of Aéromaritime, which made it a 767 operator. Aéromaritime had moved its European flying to the Air France subsidiary Air Charter in 1989–90. It ceased operations in October 1991 and was dissolved soon afterwards. The UTA name and brand then disappeared.

Sources: Wikipedia: Union de Transports Aériens, The New York Times: Air France Buying Into 2 Carriers, Simple Flying: The History Of French Carrier Union de Transports Aériens