Tunisair Express
Tunisair Express (French: Société des Lignes Intérieures et Internationales, Tunisian Arabic: الخطوط التونسية السريعة) is an airline based in Tunis, Tunisia that was founded on August 1, 1991. Formerly known as Tuninter (Tunisian Arabic: الخطوط الدولية) and SevenAir (Tunisian Arabic: طيران السابع), its parent company is the national carrier Tunisair. It operates to destinations within Tunisia as well as some services to Italy, France, and Malta.
History
From its founding in 1990 until 2000, Tunisair Express was known in French as Tuninter, and bore the Arabic name "Domestic Airline" (الخطوط الداخلية). Initially limited to domestic routes (it is still the only airline to fly internally within Tunisia), Tuninter, as it was then known, obtained permission to begin international operations in 2000. In honor of the date on which it opened its first international routes (7/7/2000), the airline was renamed "SevenAir" (Compagnie Aérienne Sevenair Tunisie, طيران السابع). SevenAir was owned by a relative of the wife of the former President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, and was renamed TunisAir Express following Ben Ali's departure from Tunisia on January 14, 2011.[1] Tunisair Express transported a total of six million passengers between 1992 and 2008, carrying 300,000 passengers in 2008 alone.
In December 2015, it has been announced that Tunisair Express will be merged into Tunisair in the foreseeable future to achieve a better profitability.[2]
Destinations
A former Tuninter
ATR-72 now operated by Tunisair Express
As of June 2015, Tunisair Express operates scheduled passenger flights to the following destinations:[3]
Fleet
As of March 2016, the Tunisair Express fleet consists of the following aircraft:[4]
Accidents and incidents
- 6 August 2005, Tuninter Flight 1153: a Tuninter ATR-72 crash-landed in the sea 18 miles off the Sicilian coast while on a flight from the Italian town of Bari to Djerba in Tunisia. The aircraft was carrying 39 passengers and crew, 16 of whom died. Officials at Bari airport reported that most of the passengers were Italian tourists. The fuel indicator was reading incorrectly because it was designed to be fitted only in a smaller plane: the ATR42. Therefore, the crew did not detect that the aircraft was running low on fuel. The turboprop suffered fuel exhaustion and the ATR72 ditched off the Sicilian coast. The airline was banned from flying into Italy for almost two years.[5]
References
External links
Media related to Tunisair Express at Wikimedia Commons
Tunisia
Malta
Italy
France