Season 1 • Episode 9
LatestAutumn 1948. With high financial rewards to be made from the Berlin airlift, independent operator Ruskin has nothing to operate. He has lost his licence, one of his planes and most of his crew. Can he save himself from disaster.
Airline is a British television drama created by Wilfred Greatorex and lasted for nine episodes broadcast from 3 January to 28 February 1982. Produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV1, the series stars Roy Marsden as Jack Ruskin, a pilot demobbed after the end of the Second World War who starts up his own air freight business.
Acting
Roy Marsden carries every scene with exhausted, determined charisma.
Production
Yorkshire TV recreates 1940s Britain on a shoestring, and it works.
Creator
Wilfred Greatorex
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Airline arrived during a brief British obsession with aviation dramas, riding the coattails of Baa Baa Black Sheep and The A-Team's eventual sky-bound imitators.
Creator Wilfred Greatorex had just come off The Sandbaggers, a legendary spy series — so the KGB elements here weren't random, they were his comfort zone bleeding through.
GB
