The 'Open Skies' era has come to an end, at least in terms of the airline called Open Skies set by British Airways in 2008, which operated its last flight last week.
Open Skies was a premium brand flying a premium service between New York and Paris Orly and has been absorbed into the new IAG budget carrier, Level, which used the Open Skies operators certificate to get airborne. Now the last aircraft featuring the Open Skies livery doing an Open Skies route has flown its last revenue flight for the airline. The Orly operation is now run with two Level-branded Airbus A330-200s.
The last flight from Newark to Paris took place on 2nd September and the Boeing 767 is now in the process to be retired from service and as it bows out, so too does the last remnants of OpenSkies brand, at least in public eyes.
The aircraft, registration: F-HILU was flown to St Athan, a few miles from Cardiff, Wales on 3rd September to end its 28-year working life.
Photo © Dominique Scarmure
