Witnessing CSA's last flight at Paris CDG - pictures

Little did I expect, when I was waiting for my (hugely delayed) Easyjet flight at Paris-CDG T2B terminal that I was going to witness the departure of the very last flight of one of Europe’s oldest airlines.

And, actually, I should have known! Because I had written about this topic for AeroTime just a few days earlier!

The demise of CSA Czech Airlines did not come exactly as a surprise.

In fact, what I found surprising is that it was still a member of the SkyTeam alliance, even if its fleet had, since the pandemic and a near bankruptcy experience, been reduced to a mere two aircraft and as many routes (to the point that I, prematurely, included it in my 2021 list of airline bankruptcies!).

In reality, CSA is, technically, not disappearing, since it will remain as a holding company, with its aviation assets being transferred to Smartwings, a Czech airline and touroperator that is owned by the same shareholders. The airline brand and the iconic “OK” code will go, though.

CSA has lived just long enough to enter the exclusive club of centenary airlines, which at the moment has only four members: KLM, Avianca, Qantas and Aeroflot. You can find the list of the world’s oldest airlines still operating in this piece I wrote for CNN, btw.

In case you were wondering how the rest of this last CSA flight went, aviation youtuber Josh Cahill was on that last flight and made a video about it

So, sad to see such a historical airline brand go (I had only flown with them once and I keep a good memory of the experience), but wanted to share also this little moment of European airline history that I had the chance to witness, inadvertently, from up close.