>Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 13:37:24 -0500 >From: lafrance@xxxxxxxxxxx >Subject: MD80 sighting > >Today I saw landing a MD80 in EWR I never saw before. It was white with >red on the nose upto the cockpit and red tail with a map of the world on >the fusalage like TWA had at its end(all in red). >Roger >EWROPS This is a peculiar one: it is an ex-USAir MD-82, N822US, which is painted in the colors of Kyrgyz Air, a joint venture airline set up by Austrian investors in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This bird never got that far before the airline went out of business. It got painted in Romania and was going to be flown by Romanian pilots with the plane in Swazi register, since the MD-80 was not certified in Kyrgyzstan - as it isn't in the whole former Soviet Union. Now the plane is operated by CSI International for U.S Marshals, transporting convicts and aliens who are to be deported. It is based in Alexandria, Louisiana. The plane's sister ship N820US operated the Bishkek to Moscow route for a few months, until the Kyrgyz government said the airline had not fulfilled all its promises and withdrew their license. N820US is now operating in the same red-white livery in Turkish Cyprus for KTHY. In my forum at www.md80.net you can talk to Danny Stefanescu from Romania, who was a pilot on these planes in Kyrgyzstan. Links to the MD-80's short story with Kyrgyz Air: http://www.md80.net/yabbse/index.php?board=13;action=display;threadid=171 http://www.md80.net/yabbse/index.php?board=22;action=display;threadid=376 http://www.md80.net/yabbse/index.php?board=30;action=display;threadid=711 <http://www.airliners.net/open.file/377067/M/>http://www.airliners.net/open.file/377067/M/ Jan-Erik Andelin MD-80 International Forum