Palair

Palair Macedonian Airlines
Founded	1991
Ceased operations	September 1996
Fleet size	3
Destinations	9
Headquarters	Skopje and Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia
Key people	Vanja Bitoljanu
Website	Unknown

Palair Macedonian Airlines (Macedonian: Авиокомпанија „Палер Македонија“) was the national flag carrier of Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) operating from Skopje and Ohrid Airports.

History edit

Tupolev Tu-154B-1 of Palair at Zurich Airport in 1992

During the fall of Yugoslavia, and the establishment of an Independent Macedonian republic in the early nineties, Palair Macedonian airlines was created. Their fleet began with a Tupolev Tu-154 but was soon followed by a leased Fokker F-28 and F-100, the planes were first in white and red, and later all red with yellow text. When the UN dropped sanctions against Yugoslavia in 1996, Yugoslav national airline JAT Yugoslav Airlines restarted operations, leading to a drastic drop in Palair's passenger numbers. Palair Macedonian ceased operations in September 1996.

Fleet edit

Tupolev Tu-154B (4)^[1] - leased from Balkan Bulgarian Airlines and bore Bulgarian registration
Antonov An-24 (3)^[1]
Fokker F-28 Fellowship (2)^[1]
Fokker F-100 (4)^[1]
BAC 1-11-528FL - leased from Jaro International

Accident history edit

On 5 March 1993, Flight 301, a Fokker F-100, crashed seconds after takeoff from Skopje runway 34 on a flight to Zurich. Investigation into the accident determined the cause of the accident to be the failure of the flight crew to have the aircraft de-iced before departure. Of the 97 people on board, 83 died.^[2]