A few weeks ago, I did a post that mentioned a 737-200 that we operated on lease from Trans European Airways (TEA) in Belgium. In that post and a subsequent posting on interim liveries, we never posted a photo that really showed the aircraft in its TEA livery with Southwest titles and it’s Belgian registration, OO-TEM. Well, this post aims to rectify that. I asked Eric on our Graphics Team to scan some negatives, and there were shots of that aircraft on the roll of film that I gave Eric. (By the way, Eric is responsible for many of the photos I use in Flashback Fridays, so if you enjoy these posts, Eric gets the credit.)
In the first photo below, we see OO-TEM begin its takeoff roll. At first, I thought the takeoff was filmed here at Love Field because there are similar hangars here. However, the more I looked at the photo, the more I had doubts. There is a runway in the foreground, and Love doesn’t have parallel runways. This would appear to be Houston Hobby, and the aircraft is taking off from Runway 12Right.
The next two photos show the airplane lifting off and climbing out. OO-TEM was a 737-2Q8, and it was leased by Southwest from February 1981 until returning to TEA at the end of April, 1983. Next week, we look at how Southwest celebrated St. Patrick's Day in 1981.