Flash Airlines

Flash Airlines was a private charter airline operating out of Cairo, Egypt that was part of the Flash Group tourism company. The airline operated two Boeing 737-3Q8 aircraft manufactured in 1993 on non-scheduled commercial passenger flights on both international and domestic routes.

History
The airline was established in 1995 as Heliopolis Airlines. It received its certificate of operation from the Egyptian authorities in 1996. It became a member of the Flash group in 2000. During that year Flash Airlines had one 737-300 with another that joined in 2002.

In 2002 Swiss aviation authorities performed a surprise inspection on SU-ZCF, a Flash Airlines Boeing 737-300. They discovered missing pilot oxygen masks, a lack of oxygen tanks, and inoperable cockpit instruments. The Swiss grounded the aircraft until Flash repaired the plane. Several days later Switzerland banned Flash. In addition, Poland banned Flash. Tour operators in Norway ceased contracting with Flash. The crash of Flight 604 led to an investigation that exposed poor safety measures and helped lead to the folding of Flash.

Flash Airlines
The Flash Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft during operations:

Heliopolis Airlines
The Heliopolis Airlines fleet consisted of the following aircraft before merging into Flash group:

Accidents and incidents
In 2003,a passenger reported flames from an engine. On 3 January 2004, Flash Airlines Flight 604, using the 737-300 aircraft SU-ZCF, crashed into the Red Sea shortly after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh. All passengers and crew died.

Following the crash, a spokesman for Switzerland's Federal Office for Civil Aviation said that inspections in April and October 2002 had revealed safety glitches on Flash Airlines's aircraft, and since Flash did not respond to these concerns, the airline was no longer permitted to fly to or over Switzerland. Finnish National Airline Department granted Flash Airlines a permission to do charter flights from Finland to Egypt in September 2003, because (according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat) the warning e-mail from Switzerland got to a wrong folder in an e-mail client.