Originally Posted by
SWBKCB
rog747 - Interesting stuff. but having worked for Servisair at MAN, this bit raised an eyebrow -
When they dropped the unused meals in our crew room, they were the same crap as everybody else had....
When I was working them, the only difference between Britannia, Orion and Air Europe was the colours. May have been different on the scheds out of LGW
And just to drag the thread even further off topic, anybody know why Dan Air were handled by BA at MAN in the early eighties?
Only charter airline to use them...
I do agree later on in years there was not much to note on the quality of charter meals between AE BY KG OM KT and AIH, although IEA were very good - nice outfit.
I never in my life had a HTML on a DA flight!
When AMM started up (as when Flying Colours did much later on) their charter meals
were really top notch.
The AE hot meal quality was much better with the more upmarket Tour Co's, certainly out of LGW.
Air Europe introduced a separate Premier Class cabin at the front on its charter flights between Gatwick and Funchal which were flown for an upmarket Co, plus also to Heraklion Palma, and Faro for Travel Club Upminster who had a posh clientele, served Superior meals with Royal Doulton china, as seen on the first AE Schedules to GIB & PMI.
Kuoni also went for this on their longer haul AE 757 charters to Egypt, Mombasa, Goa. Maldives & Thailand, keeping the front cabin separate with the middle seat empty.
Same leg room though.
Businessmen were very impressed with
Dan Air's superb
Class Elite service - DA could have cleaned up at LGW had they really thought about it taking on flying their prime routes seriously. Dan-Air did not take the opportunity to boost the profitability of its scheduled operation by concentrating on maximising revenues from high-yield travellers.
I did not know that DA was handled at MAN by BA.
Servisair was then very much the big player at MAN.
Gatwick Handling Ltd did further establish itself in 1988 at Manchester and Stansted to begin ground handling at those airports.
Dan Air (GHL) then sold off its profitable Manchester GH Co.in January 1992.
Dan Air was a large handling agent at LGW from the 1960's (Previously Airborne Aviation did handling at Gatwick) then in 1972 Dan Air formed
Gatwick Handling Ltd
GHL would be 50-50 jointly owned with Laker Airways (Discussions of tying with Caledonian Airways had stalled in 1970)
In 1982 when GK went under, NW & DL jointly bought GK's 50% share.
BAA allowed just 3 ground handling licenses at Gatwick.
The others were -
BEA (BA from 1974) handled many 3rd party airlines - such as TWA, ONA, SAM, Braniff, Inex Adria, plus Britannia & Wardair who had come over from Dan Air.
BUA also handled many 3rd party airlines including Spantax, TIA, Pan Am.
Caledonian Airways who were handled by Dan Air until their merger in 1971 with BUA, were to become
BCAL who carried on the BUA handling.
This was the state of play until 1988 when BCAL was merged with BA who then gave all of the Gatwick South Terminal 3rd party handling over to Ogden Allied Aviation.
BA went to the North Terminal.
GHL started handling also in the North Terminal.
Air Europe forever wanting to harm Dan Air, cancelled it's handling contract with GHL in 1988 and went with Servisair, as did Britannia.
Air Europe then went to Ogden Aviation until AE's demise.
I am not sure exactly when Servisair came to Gatwick, but they took over Ogden Allied by mid 1990's.
Finally in 1993 BA sold their GHL share in full to Delta and Northwest.
In 1998 all the GH Co's were sold to Go Ahead Group, who then merged GH in 2001 with Midland Airport Services, British Midland Handling Services, and Reed Aviation.
In 2003 all these became Aviance.
After then I had lost the plot with so many new names appearing in the Handling business - Plane Handling, Aviance, Swissport, Reed, Menzies, Dnata (who are these people>?)