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Old 7th Nov 2007, 07:36
  #10 (permalink)  
WHBM
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: London UK
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As you have probably found out by now Dan-Air had a constantly-changing approach to scheduled services which went through all sorts of incarnations, but for much of their existence was a "crumbs from the table" unco-ordinated network that basically was whatever BEA/BA didn't want to do.

The charter operations settled down to a more typical mainstream IT set of routes, but in the 1950s their Avro Yorks roamed the world on oddball flights and they were not unusual in places like Singapore.

In addition to the expected routes from the UK to the Mediterranean they had a longstanding base at Berlin Tegel and operated holiday flights from there to the same Mediterranean points.

Then there was the 707 era in the 1970s when they operated transatlantic charters for a while. Toronto and Vancouver were some of their most frequently served points. They eventually lost such charter contracts and the 707s dropped back to freighting from Gatwick down to Africa.

I went with them in the 1980s on a scheduled service from Manchester to Heathrow in a One-Eleven, just for a whim instead of the BA Shuttle. About a dozen passengers, the route didn't last for long. Par for the course with them really.

I really think there are very few areas of aviation they didn't get into at some time or other.

When the 146-100 came out they bought their first-ever new aircraft, but then used them on charters to Palma. The seat-mile costs compared to the competition must have been horrendous.

Their charter bases in the UK changed around from time to time, especially the smaller ones, but Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow were longstanding. When they had the Clarksons contract with Comets (mid-1960s until 1974) their North-East operation was based at Teesside rather than Newcastle.
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