Titan Airways has retired the last of its Boeing 757s. The UK charter and wet lease specialist is now an all-Airbus operator. Fittingly, its last 757-200, registered G-ZAPX, performed an around-the-world luxury tour, for TCS World Travel, before being grounded. Such roles at the moment are within the hands of the far more efficient, quieter, and more eco-friendly A321neo.
A fast have a look at G-ZAPX
Delivered to Iberia as EC-HIS in July 2000, the 757 entered Titan Airways’ fleet (as G-ZAPX) in May 2006. Owned by Titan, ch-aviation.com shows that it’s in a 60-seat configuration (48 seats in business, 12 in economy). This low-density layout was for its operation in an ‘exclusive jet’ role, because the carrier puts it.
Photo: Luciano de la Rosa I Shutterstock.
Based on Flightradar24, the last revenue-generating service touched down at London Stansted (STN), where it was based, on May 4th. That day, it flew Victoria Falls (VFA)-Accra (ACC)-STN, landing at 21:04 after greater than 11 hours of flying. It had accomplished its last around-the-world tour.
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May sixteenth: the ultimate flight
Having arrived home on May 4th, G-ZAPX was parked until the sixteenth. That morning, it departed STN for the ultimate time. With the apt call sign ‘Zap 757Y,’ it left at 11:49 for the short trip to Kemble (GBA; Cotswold Airport), arriving 31 minutes later. Presumably, it should be dismantled for parts fairly than stored.
For the various airlines that wet-leased the aircraft, the character of Titan’s operation dictates that they were on a short-term, gap-filling basis. In any case, it is pricey to wet lease aircraft. In 2022, for instance, it operated for Jet2, TUI, and British Airways. Most notably, though, it was utilized by easyJet for just a few months in the summertime of 2010.
Where has it flown this 12 months?
Titan Airways’ aircraft can go just about anywhere. Based on Flightradar24, G-ZAPX operated the next in 2023, including charters and positioning flights. It’s a multitude of a map and hard to read, but nonetheless exciting.
Image: GCMap.
At 8h 41m, the longest sector was Fort Lauderdale (FLL)-STN, undertaken on April fifth. At half-hour, the shortest was from Agra (AGR), for the Taj Mahal, to the nice Rajasthani city of Jaipur (JAI), on January twelfth. (JAI’s is next to AGR on the map.) Covering 134 miles (216 km), it was one minute quicker than G-ZAPX’s final flight from STN to GBA.
To St Helena
While G-ZAPX visited vast numbers of places globally, perhaps essentially the most exciting was to St Helena (HLE), in the course of the Atlantic between Africa and South America. It appears they were for repatriation flights in the course of the pandemic.
The above tweet, from July 2020, refers to G-ZAPX operating STN-Gran Canaria (LPA)-Ascension Island (ASI)-HLE-ACC-STN. Thereafter, it operated additional flights, mainly routing STN-ACC-HLE-ACC-STN. Such is the lifetime of a charter and wet lease aircraft.
Did you fly G-ZAPX? If that’s the case, share your experience within the comments.