Air Foyle HeavyLift

Air Foyle HeavyLift

A Heavylift CL-44O at Paris-Charles de Gaulle
IATA ICAO Callsign UPA FOYLE
Founded	February 1, 2001 (2001-02-01) Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Commenced operations	October 1, 2001 (2001-10-01)
Ceased operations	July 1, 2006 (2006-07-01)
Parent company	Air Foyle, HeavyLift Cargo Airlines
Headquarters	Bishop's Stortford, United Kingdom
Key people	Christopher Foyle CEO

For the Australian Cargo Airline see: HeavyLift Cargo Airlines

Air Foyle HeavyLift was an aviation company based in Bishop's Stortford, United Kingdom. It specialised in heavy air cargo services. It was the worldwide sales agent for Antonov Airlines of Kiev, Ukraine. This relationship ceased in June 2006 and Antonov Airlines now operates a joint venture marketing company Ruslan International with Volga-Dnepr JS Cargo Airlines of Russia.

Air Foyle HeavyLift was established in February 2001 and started operations in October 2001. It was formed as a joint venture between Air Foyle (established on 3 May 1978) and HeavyLift Cargo Airlines (founded as TAC HeavyLift on 31 October 1978). The latter ceased operations in its own right, but the joint venture continued to operate successfully. The company was owned by Air Foyle (50%) and HC Holdings (50%). The company's Chairman and joint CEO was Christopher Foyle, also Chairman of Foyle's bookshop.

Air Foyle started operations as an executive air charter company with one Piper Aztec aircraft in 1978. It grew its fleet of Aztec, Navajo and Chieftain aircraft by carrying passenger, cargo and aerial survey flights. In 1979 it pioneered the overnight carriage of courier traffic between the UK and Europe operating a nightly flight between Luton and Brussels for Skypak (later a TNT company). In 1985 it started providing larger cargo aircraft to TNT, by then its principal cargo customer, using wet leased Handley Page Dart Herald aircraft operating nightly from Birmingham to Nuremberg and Hannover and these were later replaced by a BAC One-Eleven jet cargo aircraft and then by a Boeing 737-200QC aircraft wet leased from Aer Lingus. When TNT announced that it would order 72 British Aerospace 146 aircraft converted to freighters, Air Foyle won the contract to operate these aircraft on behalf of TNT, then an Australian company. This operation commenced in May 1987 with one BAe 146 aircraft and rapidly expanded to ten such aircraft which Air Foyle then operated for thirteen years for TNT on a nightly schedule from various airports in the UK and mainland Europe into TNT's hub in Cologne and later Liège.