Trek Airways - Company History

Company History

Founded in 1953, Trek Airways was the only South African airline apart from SAA to fly international services. At the beginning, flights were operated from Europe to South Africa with one over-night stop. The aircraft used at the time was the Vickers VC.1 Viking. Since the Viking did not have the range for the operations, they were replaced by the Douglas DC-4 and Lockheed L-749A Constellation. Later on it operated the Lockheed L-1649 Starliner.

A 1960's timetable shows that Trek operated from London, Düsseldorf, Vienna and Luxembourg to Windhoek and Johannesburg with two or three intermediate stops.

In 1964 a co-operation with Luxair was reached whereby Luxair took connecting passengers to other European airports.

In was in 1969 that the first jet aircraft was used when a Boeing 707 was introduced, but due to the embargo of South African registered aircraft due to Apartheid Trek had to suspend flights for a period of time. Those operations were re-established in 1991 and once again a co-operation with Luxair was established whereby Trek used a Luxair/Luxavia Boeing 747-SP painted in the old Trek color scheme. It was also during this time that Trek founded a subsidiary called Flitestar using Airbus A320 and ATR-72 aircraft. In 1991, politics changed again and the South African Government deregulated its aviation policy. Trek Airways applied for and was granted a license for a South African domestic service, in direct competition to SAA. Flitestar was born operating Airbus A320's. Flitestar was a money losing operation that drained the finances of Trek and on 11 April 1994, Trek ceased all operations.