From the 1950s to the 1970s there was a regular service transporting cars by air between the UK and various airports in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. It cost about twice as much as the boat from Dover to Calais.
They initially used Bristol Superfreighters, which were replaced by Aviation Traders Carvairs (converted for the purpose from second-hand Douglas DC-4s). The Carvair could carry 5 cars and 22 passengers- the cars were loaded through a door in the nose.
The "air ferry" service was killed by competition from the new RO-RO car ferries (when it started flying, cars still had to be loaded onto cross-Channel ferries by crane) and especially by the hovercraft service which began in 1968- a crossing by hovercraft with a car didn't cost much more than the conventional ferry while being as fast as the plane. The hovercraft, in turn, stopped being viable because of competition from the car-carrying trains through the Channel Tunnel- it stopped running in 2000.
