Skyways (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series made by Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions
Crawford Productions is an Australian television production company founded by Hector Crawford; the present incarnation of the company, Crawfords Australia, is now a subsidiary of the WIN television corporation.-History:...
for the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
.
The series, which aired from 1979 to 1981, was set at the fictional Pacific International Airport and dealt with the lives of the pilots, airline staff and management team who worked there.
Skyways was mainly taped in a television studio where, in many interior-set scenes, Colour Separation Overlay created the illusion of a bustling airport with taxiing planes outside the window. Many of the exterior scenes were shot on location at Melbourne Airport
Melbourne Airport
Melbourne Airport , also known as Tullamarine Airport, is the primary airport serving the city of Melbourne and the second busiest in Australia. It was opened in 1970 to replace the nearby Essendon Airport. Melbourne Airport is the sole international airport of the four airports serving the...
.
The show's regular cast members included Tony Bonner
Tony Bonner
Tony Bonner is an Australian television, film and stage actor and singer. Bonner became famous in the 1960s children's television series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, later moving on to lead roles in the dramas Cop Shop and Skyways.-Early life:Bonner was born in Manly, a northern beach suburb of Sydney...
as airport manager Paul MacFarlane, later replaced by Gary Doolan (Gerard Kennedy
Gerard Kennedy (actor)
Gerard Kennedy is an Australian actor and two-time Gold Logie winner. He played six different characters in guest appearances in Homicide, all in 1966...
), Tina Bursill
Tina Bursill
Tina Bursill is an Australian actress usually seen on television playing sophisticated and coolly self-reliant women such as Louise Carter in Skyways. Det. Sgt...
, Brian James
Brian James (actor)
Brian James was an Australian actor, best remembered for his roles on television. He was born in Victoria.He began his TV career in the late 1950s as Dr Geoffrey Thompson in the early medical drama Emergency for which he won a coveted 'Logie' award...
, Ken James
Ken James (Australian actor)
Ken James, born 16 November 1948 in Sydney, Australia is an actor known for regular roles in several popular television series. He was probably best known to Australian audiences as Sonny's older brother Mark in the 1960s children's TV show, Skippy.He later played television actor Tony Wild in The...
, Joanne Samuel
Joanne Samuel
Joanne Samuel is an actress who remains best known for her role as the screen wife of Mel Gibson in the 1979 film Mad Max....
, Gaynor Martin, Andrew McKaige
Andrew McKaige
Andrew McKaige is an Australian actor.In addition to being an original cast member of the 1980s soap opera Sons and Daughters , he is the second actor to play the role of Marty Jackson in Prisoner – succeeding Ronald Korosy and preceding Michael Winchester.More recently, he has appeared in Paradise...
, Bartholomew John
Bartholomew John
Bartholomew John is an actor best known for his roles on television.He played Dr. Chris Piper in the Australian soap opera The Young Doctors from 1977 to 1979 followed by appearances in Skyways and Waterloo Station. More recent credits include: Murder Call, All Saints and Always Greener...
, Bruce Barry, Judy Morris
Judy Morris
Judy Morris is an Australian actress, film director and screenwriter, well known for the variety of roles she played in 54 different television shows and films, but most recently for co-writing a musical epic about the life of penguins in Antarctica which became Happy Feet, Australia's largest...
, Deborah Coulls, Maurie Fields
Maurie Fields
Maurie Fields was an Australian actor, vaudeville performer and stand-up comedian. He became a well-known face on television thanks to his dramatic roles in Bellbird, The Box, Prisoner and The Flying Doctors...
, Susanna Lobez, Kit Taylor, Penelope Stewart and Kerry Armstrong
Kerry Armstrong
Kerry Michelle Armstrong is an Australian actress on film, television, and stage. She is one of only two actresses to win two Australian Film Institute Awards in the same year...
. Bill Stalker
Bill Stalker
William Robert "Bill" Stalker was a New Zealand actor, most famous for his roles in television.-Early life:Stalker was born and grew up in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, the second of seven children to Robert and ZenaStalker...
played head of airport security Peter Fanelli, an ex-detective from the Crawford police drama series Cop Shop
Cop Shop
Cop Shop was an Australian police drama television series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday operations of both the uniformed police officers and the plain-clothes detectives of the fictional Riverside Police Station....
. After Skyways ended Fanelli returned to Cop Shop
Cop Shop
Cop Shop was an Australian police drama television series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday operations of both the uniformed police officers and the plain-clothes detectives of the fictional Riverside Police Station....
, while Brian James' character George Tibbet was transplanted to Holiday Island
Holiday Island (TV series)
Holiday Island is an Australian television series made by Crawford Productions for Network Ten. The show aired twice weekly from 1981 to 1982, with the first episode going to air on 17 June 1981....
.
Years before Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
and stardom, Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...
and Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 million records, and his début album Ten Good Reasons was one of the highest-selling albums of 1989...
appeared together in one episode as brother and sister.
An early storyline featured a lesbian flight attendant (Morris) unsuccessfully attempting to seduce a colleague (Coulls) who revealed she was heterosexual. Morris' character was soon afterwards stabbed to death in the shower as part of a murder-mystery storyline.
The series screened in the UK on Astra Satellite channel Lifestyle
Lifestyle (TV channel)
Launched on 30 October 1985, Lifestyle was a British daytime television channel dedicated to women and family, and was broadcast on cable and on the transponder 5 of the Astra satellite. Lifestyle's lineup consisted on magazines, novelas and movies. The programming was linked by an in vision...
during 1990 at 1.00 p.m Monday to Friday. Despite its afternoon slot, many of the adult storylines were not removed for a daytime audience. The serial killer storyline involving Morris' character being stabbed to death in a shower was broadcast in its entirety. The soap was also broadcast in Europe in 1985 on Sky Channel.