Wien Air Alaska Boeing 727-277/Adv
VH-RMW (N276WC) (c/n 20550)
Wien Air Alaska had purchased several Boeing 727s in
1981 to provide extra capacity for its
routes which
now extended well into the lower 48 states. At the end of 1983,
about a year before
it folded, it
acquired three 727s from Ansett Airlines in Australia. This image
from the Clive Dyball
collection was taken
at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne, just prior to the aircraft leaving
for Alaska,
where it became
N276WC. At the end of 1984, the president of Wien Air
Alaska, Jim J. Flood
attempted to
restructure the company as Wien Airlines. The three
Australian 727s were leased, at
that time, to
Republic Airlines (and later to the resurrected Braniff
Airways). In the event Wien Air-
lines did not
emerge as a passenger service and was probably a "paper company" merely
to handle
the leases of
the former Wien Air Alaska fleet. Wien Air Alaska ceased to
function as an airline on
23 November 1984.