Dan Air 737-200

[Mooncrest]

What year did Dan Air introduce these aircraft to their fleet ? My guess is 1980; G-BKAP - leased directly from Maersk - or G-BICV (maybe both). This was the year that the Comets finally called it a day so replacement aircraft would have been needed. I understand 1980 was also the year that the 727-200s joined to supplement their smaller cousins.

I first saw a Dan Air 732 in 1984, on holiday charter duty to and from Leeds Bradford. I think Dan would have been on ILG/Intasun duty as LBA didn't see Air Europe in 1984, whereas they had operated Palma flights in 1982 and 1983.

Thankyou.

[treadigraph]

G-BICV joined in late 1980, KAP was two years later. G-BJXJ was another early lease.

First 727-200s were G-BHNE and F I think, probably earlyish 1980.

[Mooncrest]

Thanks tread, my guess was accurate. BJXJ eventually joined Britannia whereas G-ILFC came from there.

[Flightrider]

G-BICV was registered to Dan-Air between 31 October 1980 and 6 November 1983.
G-BJXJ 5 March 1982 to 4 November 1987 when it went to Britannia
G-BJXL 4 November 1983 to 3 November 1986 including two winters in Canada with Nordair
G-BKAP 27 April 1982 to 1 November 1983 before going to Orion for a year and then back home to Denmark.
G-BKNH 5 April 1983 to 24 November 1992
G-BLDE 23 April 1984 to 24 November 1992
G-BMDF 27 March 1984 to 18 November 1992 then on to Ryanair
G-ILFC 1 November 1983 to 5 July 1988 and then changed to G-WGEL
G-WGEL 5 July 1988 through to the bitter end in 16 November 1992

First summer looks to be 1981 and there were 6 aircraft on strength through Summer 1984. I think one was Berlin-based for a long time which (if memory serves me rightly) was BLDE as it had the big centre tanks and higher take-off weight. Can't remember which one did two years with -15 engine on one side and -17 on the other!

1985 had no Dan-Air 737 flying at LBA - there was a Monday 1-11 to Venice, Tuesday 1-11 to Alicante and Friday 1-11 to Malaga, all for Intasun. The Monday Palma was infamously on the British Airtours TriStar that year.

By 1988, the Monday LBA-Palma and Wednesday Ibiza were both on Dan 737-200s (Tuesday Alicante on Air Europe 737-300). Monday Palma was the Newcastle based DA 737 and Wednesday Ibiza was Manchester based.

1989 Monday Intasun Palma had moved to Air 2000, Dan 737-200 was back on the Tuesday Alicante (MAN based) and the Wednesday afternoon Ibiza was switched fairly late on to a MAN-based 727-200.

No Dan-Air IT flying at LBA in 1990 but the 737-200s did have one last busy summer at LBA in 1992 as they did most of the scheduled Jersey flying.

[Mooncrest]

Thankyou Flightrider. Looks like a maximum of six in the fleet at any one time. I expect they were kept very busy on the ITs, although I remember them on the Jersey rotations too. 1980 was probably a good time to be a Dan Air Comet pilot or FE, with the 737s and larger 727s arriving and the Comets going.

[GBYAJ]

Ah Mooncrest, my favourite subject!

as a youngster on the roof at Newcastle there was always a Dan Air 737 around so I developed an obsession with them!

I’d flown on a 727-100 in 1982 NCL - AGP and then 737-200’s in 1984 and 1986 (both NCL - PMI). The based 737-200 must have started in 1983 or 84.

it was only in late 86 that I found out aircraft had regs so don’t know what operated the flights before then. However, I think it was G-BLDE from looking at movement records and also a picture from inside which had foreign writing above the emergency exit (which would suggest DE or DF as they came from Arkia).

From a spotter perspective they were very boring though. Dan Air rarely rotated them. DE was the main resident but there was one winter season with DF and another summer with NH between 86 and 90. However, the others did pass through occasionally but it was more likely that a 727-100 would be used when the based 737 was at Lasham on maintenance.

1990 to 1992 was great for Dan Air charters through NCL as new 737-400’s were based . The 737-200 left in Oct 90 when intasun took their contact away (to try and force DA out of business). Obviously, the DA final decline was over these years as well so not all all good!

[olster]

I flew ‘on loan’ from Britannia to Dan Air for a few months in Spring / Summer 1985 as a first officer B737-200 based Newcastle. A very different ‘vibe’ from Britannia but great fun, great crews and very professional. Probably one of the happiest times of my life. Even saw Bruce Springsteen @ St James Park. Happy days.

[Mooncrest]

The red and blue Dan Air livery suited the 732 very well. It's ironic that this aircraft type was the very kind that Martin O'Regan and Errol Cossey were trying to convince Fred Newman to buy in the late 1970s and he only did so once these gents had gone away to start Air Europe with Harry Goodman. Needless to say, Dan Air's 732s were all leased and used whereas Air Europe's were brand new and, I think, owned or at least financed. Had to be better than the Comets, mind!

[GBYAJ]

[QUOTE=Mooncrest;11654319]The red and blue Dan Air livery suited the 732 very well. It's ironic that this aircraft type was the very kind that Martin O'Regan and Errol Cossey were trying to convince Fred Newman to buy in the late 1970s and he only did so once these gents had gone away to start Air Europe with Harry Goodman. Needless to say, Dan Air's 732s were all leased and used whereas Air Europe's were brand new and, I think, owned or at least financed. Had to be better than the Comets, mind![/QUOTE

a really basic question which I never understood about Dan air was around this. I understand that Each fleet was an operating unit and if the 737-200 unit was profitable (as it must have been for BY and BA) this proved what they had been telling Fred Newman so why did they never make the 737 fleet bigger rather than smaller from
its peak of 6??? What could have been…. they equipped with fuel thirsty 727’s instead.

[Flightrider]

Winter utilisation was the key issue to making more 737s work, but wasn't as critical on the 727s. They had some counter-cyclical leasing on the 737-200s (Nordair Canada) and with Sun Country on the 727-200s in latter days.

Pulling a couple of months at random, July 1984:
737-200 average daily utilisation 9.5 hours
727-200 average daily utilisation 10.2 hours
727-100 average daily utilisation 7.8 hours

December 1984:
737-200 average daily utilisation 6.5 hours (the hardest-working fleet in the airline)
727-200 average daily utilisation 6.2 hours
727-100 average daily utilisation 3.7 hours

Maybe not the best example, but without an in-house tour operator, you couldn't keep enough 737s flying in the winter where if you parked up the 727s, it didn't matter as much. There was also the point that if you flew a 737-200 on scheduled services and parked a 1-11 in winter, it wasn't too bad where if you flew a 727 and parked a 1-11, the difference in trip costs between the two types was so great that it didn't work.

Even so, Dan-Air's summer utilisation on the 737-200s was still below the others in the sector. That Monarch utilisation is incredible - must have been a lot of long-distance flying to pack the hours in like that. And Air Europe clearly managed to do very well with getting aircraft in/out between summer and winter

Air Europe 737-200s did 11.4 hours in July 1984 with 7 aircraft and still managed 10.9 hours in December 1984 with 4 aircraft
Britannia 737-200s did 10.5 hours in July 1984 with 29 aircraft, dropping to 6.5 hours with 27 aircraft in December
Monarch 737-200s did 12.8 hours in July 1984 with 5 aircraft, dropping to 8.5 hours with 1 aircraft in December
Orion 737-200s did 11.5 hours in July 1984 with 11 aircraft, dropping to 7.5 hours with 8 aircraft in December

Not sure I'm explaining that especially well, but hope that makes some sense. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was the right thing to do though!!

PS - left the British Airtours fleet out, as they were reported as one with the BA scheduled 737-200s and aircraft swapped back and forth frequently, so it's not really representative to include Beatours in the above figures.

[N707ZS]

In comparison what hours did Ryanair do with there's.

[Mooncrest]

[QUOTE=GBYAJ;11654502]

Originally Posted by Mooncrest

The red and blue Dan Air livery suited the 732 very well. It's ironic that this aircraft type was the very kind that Martin O'Regan and Errol Cossey were trying to convince Fred Newman to buy in the late 1970s and he only did so once these gents had gone away to start Air Europe with Harry Goodman. Needless to say, Dan Air's 732s were all leased and used whereas Air Europe's were brand new and, I think, owned or at least financed. Had to be better than the Comets, mind![/QUOTE

a really basic question which I never understood about Dan air was around this. I understand that Each fleet was an operating unit and if the 737-200 unit was profitable (as it must have been for BY and BA) this proved what they had been telling Fred Newman so why did they never make the 737 fleet bigger rather than smaller from
its peak of 6??? What could have been…. they equipped with fuel thirsty 727’s instead.

We'll never know. My old gaffer from years back was himself a former Dan Air engineer and he confirmed the stories of Fred Newman's alleged intransigence. Perhaps some new thinking was going on behind the scenes by the early to mid-1980s, thus bringing in the CFM 737 in larger numbers than the -200.

[oxenos]

In comparison what hours did Ryanair do with there's.

I can't give figures, but having flown 732s for Britannia (13 years) and Ryan (8years), the patterns were very different.
Brit aircraft, in summer, did either 3 rotations a day on shorter routes, such as Spain, or 2 a day to Greece, Turkey etc. Works out at about 14 - 17 flying hours/day. Stated about 0700, finished about 0200. Winter was very different. Much less flying, a mixture of long (Canaries) and short (skiing).
Ryan was more of a sheduled, regular pattern. I was Luton based, and the aircraft did LTN - DUB and back 5 times a day. 11 hours flying, started at 0800, finished about 2230. However, this was not seasonal, it was the same all year round except Xmas day. Luton was not really typical, but the overall pattern was relatively shorter flights and fewer overnights.
Edited to add :- The Brit figures relate, of course, to what one aircraft would typically do while on the line - it does not take account of maintenance. Brit did try do get most of the larger servicing done over the winter.
Similarly, the Ryan figures relate to the one aircraft which was Luton based at the time. It was , of course, swapped regularly to get serviced in Dublin.

[rog747]

Dan Air obtained their first 737-200 in early 1981, G-BICV ex Maersk via Guinness Peat.
G-BJXJ was an airframe built but NTU by ANZ and DA through ILFC, got it brand new for 1982.
G-BOSL, ex BY, came to DA in 1984 as G-ILFC, then became G-WGEL (Williams & Glyn Bank Equipment Leasing)

A total of 8 x 732's served DA from 1981 to 1992 (6 in service at their peak?)....half had -15 engines, and the others had the -17, thus useful for the LBA, JMK, JTR, FNC and JSI very short runways at that time.
They were configured with 130 seats.

The first new 737-300 series arrived for summer 1985, and the 170 seat 737-400's followed in 1988, at about which time DA were soon to decide on a dual fleet of brand new 733's and BAE-146's for the growing and very successful Scheduled flights offering an excellent Class Elite business cabin, and with the larger 734's used for Charter work.
Sadly this all came too late to save them from the hostile take over by BA in 1992.
Dan-Air was absorbed into British Airways' Gatwick operation.

We have no idea if Dan Air were ever going to add any more new and/or larger types, but the ethos was on the scheduled flights expansion, rather than more charter work.
DA had no in-house Tour Operator and had lost a lot of it's charter business due to the Gulf War, and with the demise of Air Europe and Intasun in 1991.

[willy wombat]

I would hardly describe the BA takeover of DA as “hostile”. DA was effectively bust.
You could start a whole new thread about the relationship between ILG, Air Europe and Dan Air. The ILG aim was obviously to maximise the overall group profit. This often meant Air Europe doing quite a lot of non ILG flying and Dan Air doing some of the flying that Air Europe didn’t want. As an example, due to the limits on night flying it was common for, for example, a night Palma to be scheduled from LGW just before the night restrictions and back to LGW just after the end of the night restrictions. As such, the aircraft would be parked in Spain for about 4 hours (they used to turn all the power off and the crew would nap in the seats). This sort of flying was, where possible, palmed off to DA. By contrast an AE aircraft might do a night Canaries which meant the aircraft could turn round immediately down route so overnight the AE aircraft got about 8 hours utilisation vs 4 hours for the DA one.
Then you could add the dynamic that AE was quite an upmarket charter airline and could attract better seat rates from tour operators to whom that mattered whereas some of ILG’s brands were quite downmarket. Club 18-30 punters really didn’t care what airline they traveled with.

[bean]

Originally Posted by willy wombat

I would hardly describe the BA takeover of DA as “hostile”. DA was effectively bust.
You could start a whole new thread about the relationship between ILG, Air Europe and Dan Air. The ILG aim was obviously to maximise the overall group profit. This often meant Air Europe doing quite a lot of non ILG flying and Dan Air doing some of the flying that Air Europe didn’t want. As an example, due to the limits on night flying it was common for, for example, a night Palma to be scheduled from LGW just before the night restrictions and back to LGW just after the end of the night restrictions. As such, the aircraft would be parked in Spain for about 4 hours (they used to turn all the power off and the crew would nap in the seats). This sort of flying was, where possible, palmed off to DA. By contrast an AE aircraft might do a night Canaries which meant the aircraft could turn round immediately down route so overnight the AE aircraft got about 8 hours utilisation vs 4 hours for the DA one.
Then you could add the dynamic that AE was quite an upmarket charter airline and could attract better seat rates from tour operators to whom that mattered whereas some of ILG’s brands were quite downmarket. Club 18-30 punters really didn’t care what airline they traveled with.

I agree. BA was not a hostile takeover. Dan sadly were on their knees

[SWBKCB]

Then you could add the dynamic that AE was quite an upmarket charter airline

Didn't feel that way when I was boarding night Palma's

[willy wombat]

Originally Posted by SWBKCB

Didn't feel that way when I was boarding night Palma's

Everything’s relative!

[rog747]

FRI or SAT Night Ibiza and night Gerona were something else LOL.

[SWBKCB]

Back in the day (early 80's), Britannia seemed the premier charter airline compared to Air Europe, Orion, etc. Long haul, Wardair were a cut above the rest (Laker, CP Air, Air Florida, Transamerica)