S.A.I.D.E ARAB AVIATION IN THE 50s

SERVICES AERIENS INTERNATIONAUX D' EGYPTE

S.A.I.D.E(1947-1952)

SAIDE baggage label .copyright unknown

Utopia airport loves to dig to find new things few people know or remember. As the years pass, and the witnesses of the emergence of Arab commercial aviation start to decrease. we have a moral and historical duty to keep the memory of companies and in particular this company alive.

S.A.I.D.E was formed in 1947 as a Societe Anonyme Egyptienne where Egyptian interests held 55% and the remaining by European interests mainly Italian ones as evidenced by the choice of airliners the company made (the FIAT G212 and the SM95)

In 1949, the company acquires 6 Curtis C46 from US wartime surplus sale and soon launches services to Beirut, Rome, Athens and Alexandria.

The timetable dated. 1950 shows the extension of the company's network reaching Paris , one of the few Arab airlines serving the French capital at that date .

winter 1950 timetable fm www.timetableimages.com/Bjorn Larsson collection

The route structure was as follows :

EGY 509 : Cairo-Alexandria-Athens-Rome (1 x week)

EGY 505 : Cairo-Rome-Milan (1 x week)

EGY 501: Cairo-Athens-Rome (1 x week)

EGY 511 :Cairo-Rome-Paris ( 1 x week)

The above flights were operated  by the SM 95 (Savoia-Marchetti 95)

Another flight EGY 513 Cairo-Benghazi-Tripoli was operated once per week (operated by the the fiat G212) and connected at Tripoli with Alitalia Flight AZ 470  : Tripoli-Malta-Catania-Rome.

1950 SAIDE  network 8789 km

The 1951/52 winter timetable presents some interesting changes : Paris, Alexandria are eliminated from SAIDE network whereas the Tripoli route is extended to Tunis and EGY 505 continued to Frankfurt  via an additional stop in Munich.

winter 51/52 timetable fm www.timetableimages.com/Bjorn Larsson collection

 Winter 1951/52 SAIDE  network 7785 km

Unfortunately the company was a loss-making venture and coupled with the Egyptian revolution of 1952, the company will be acquired by MISRAIR and ceases operations on December 1, 1952. At this time , the airline operated a fleet of 3 Curtiss C46, 3 FIAT G212

FIATG212 SU-AFE copyright Ed Coates with kind permission

 and 3 SM95 (with a 26-seat accomodation) 

SAVOIA-MARCHETTI SM95 SU-AFC fm the Ed Coates collection with kind permission

which could not possibly compete with the Lockheed constellations of Air france/TWA/KLM , the Argonauts and Hermes of BOAC etc...