Royal Airlines' C-GRYI

The April edition of "HNL RareBirds Classics" takes us to December 1998, and this Royal Airlines A310-304, C-GRYI (msn 432, l/n 379), seen above being pushed out of Gate 25.

This A310 was originally delivered to Emirates Airlines (EK/UAE) as A6-EKA in July 1987. It was sold back to Airbus as F-WGYW in May 1997. Two months later, it was leased to Royal (QN/ROY) as C-GYRI, and kept the same registration when Royal was acquired by Canada 3000 (2T/CMM) in January 2001. After the closure of Canada 3000 in November 2001, it was returned to Airbus, then leased to Euralair International Airlines (RN/ERL) as F-GRNS in May 2002. From July to December of the same year, it was sub-leased to Nas Air (P9/NCM) of Mali. In April to June 2003, it was sub-leased to Nigerian Global (NGI). After it was returned to Euralair, it was put in storage, and has since been scrapped.

If you look left of the A310's tail, is a Canada 3000 757-200 parked at Gate 26. In the 90s, there were a host of Canadian carriers serving HNL from the "Great White North" that includes: Skyservice, Air Transat, Royal Airlines, Canada 3000, Canadian Airlines, and Air Canada. Of those airlines, only Air Canada is the remaining survivor that regularly serves the Hawai‘i market.