Slov-Air


Slov-Air was an airline from Czechoslovakia, which provided services for agriculture, civil engineering, helicopter emergency medical service and the industry.

History

The roots of the airline can be traced back to 1924, when the Bata Shoe company began to build up an in-house airline for its corporate travel demand, operating small aircraft or gyrocopters like the Cierva C.30. Following the establishing of communism in Czechoslovakia in 1948, Bata Shoes was nationalised, and the airline was re-organized as Svitlet.
When in 1950 CSA was established as state airline of Czechoslovakia, Svitlet was transformed into a CSA-department, operating as Agrolet henceforth. In 1955, Agrolet became independent again as a utility airline mainly for agricultural flights. It operated out of Prague Ruzyně Airport using a fleet of the following aircraft types:
On 1 January 1969, Agrolet was renamed Slov-Air and moved its headquarters to Bratislava, catering for the demands of the Slovak part of the country. Starting in 1972, the helicopter fleet was modernised with Mi-8s.
Following the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, it was initially intended to transform Slov-Air in the flag carrier of Slovakia. These plans were dropped, when with Slovak Airlines an all-new state airline was created in 1995. Slov-Air was dismantled over the following years and split up into several independent companies for agricultural, medical, military and passenger services, most notably Aero Slovakia. The airline license of Slov-Air was officially revoked only in 2001, though.

Accidents and incidents