Air Rhodesia
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| Founded | 1 September 1967 | ||||||
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| Hubs | Salisbury | ||||||
| Focus cities | Bulawayo, Kariba | ||||||
| Fleet size | 13 | ||||||
| Destinations | Domestic, South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique | ||||||
| Headquarters |
Salisbury Airport Salisbury, Rhodesia |
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| Key people | Mervin Eyatt, Ken Greager | ||||||
Air Rhodesia was the national airline of Rhodesia. Its head office was located on the property of Salisbury Airport in Salisbury.
It was formed as a subsidiary of Central African Airways (CAA) in June 1964, but became an independent corporation on 1 September 1967. Air Rhodesia flew internal routes to Buffalo Range, Bulawayo, Fort Victoria, Kariba, and Victoria Falls. During the 1970s the airline had international flights to Johannesburg and Durban in South Africa, Beira, Vilanculos and Lourenço Marques in Mozambique, and Blantyre in Malawi.
Its mainstay aircraft were Vickers Viscount 700D turboprops and the Boeing 720 jetliners, with three of the latter being successfully purchased in April 1973 in spite of sanctions against the Rhodesian government. Following the renaming of the country, it became known as Air Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979, and then reformed as Air Zimbabwe in 1980.
CAA was formed on 1 June 1946 as a joint airline of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi), with 50 percent, 35 percent and 15 percent of its share capital being held by the governments of those three countries respectively. CAA started operating with a mixture of former Southern Rhodesia Air Services (SRAS) aircraft, but soon took delivery of five De Havilland Doves and three Vickers Vikings. Services were steadily expanded to cover a route network extending as far north as Nairobi and as far south as Johannesburg, as far east as Blantyre and as far west as Maun in Bechuanaland (now Botswana). In August 1948 CAA inaugurated the first air freight service in Africa.
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