Dan Air Route Network

[wouldhave]

Everyone I apologise if this is in the wrong area but still new to PPrune.

Dan Air were one of my favourite airlines. I remember seeing their BAC 1-11s and 737s at Newcastle frequently and their 727s (my personal favourite) at Manchester on less frequent visits.

I have been trying for some time to find out as much as possible about their route network but have been hitting a brick wall.

Any help anyone can give me particularly with charter destinations would be greatly appreciated.

[m5dnd]

Try locating the book "The Spirit of DAN-AIR" by Graham M. Simons
ISBN 1 870384 20 2

Should answer all Your questions..

Sorry have not got my copy at this time, left it at my parents in storage!

A fine airline..

Good luck

[ATR42300]

Dan Air

A copy of the Dan Air book is available at the moment on ebay

[wouldhave]

thanks to both of you - im watching it to see how expensive it gets

[treadigraph]

Wouldhave, there are several s/h copies available via Amazon and Abebooks - £20+.

Great airline, I used to enjoy flying with them.

[LowNSlow]

Dan Dare's HS 748 Budgies were a very common sight at Scatsta in the Shetland Isles during the construction of Sullom Voe Oil Terminal as they ferried the "bears" back and fore to Glasgow and Aberdeen. Christmas was always interesting as 6,000+ workers had to be taken home to see the wee un's!

[Richard Taylor]

How many Budgies did Dan Air have at Dyce at their peak?

Understand quite a few (late 70s?)

[peeriebreeks]

As far as I remember Shell had 6 Dan-Air 748's per rotation flying Aberdeen to Sumburgh in the mid-seventies plus one for Chevron and one for Conoco. Dan-Air had five offices in the terminal at Sumburgh and a lot of check-in staff. Around 700 pass holders at Sumburgh in that period

[Selfloading]

You might want to have a look on ebay for some Dan Air inflight magazines, they go quite cheap and have loads of info about the airline.

[WHBM]

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.

[norman atkinson]

Dan Dare

I suspect that the origins are 'trooping' service personnel. This leads me to Marshall Suttons of Beverley in Yorkshire who ran charter in connection with Dan Dare. I had/have a villa in Menorca for 35 years and used MS and Dan Dare. So there is Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester, Teesside, Birmingham and - guessing- Cardiff.

In a Quixotic way, Menorca 'changeover days' were fridays and then Fridays and Mondays so Dan Dare must have flown to other destinations.

I do recall flights flying 'w's' then.

I hope that my sketchy memory will start to give clues to your quest.

[Whitehatter]

and holding it all together was that place of miracles and wonders, where magic was performed on top of a hill in Hants.

I refer to Lasham, of course....

[chevvron]

Dan Air acquired 4 'budgies' when they took over Skyways; these had been used for the 'coach air' Lympne to Beauvais services amongst other things (when they weren't sliding off the grass runway at Portsmouth!). I'm not sure if Dan Air continued Lympne - Beauvais; I suspect not 'cos I think Lympne closed shortly after the takeover. They were also used for Luton - Leeds - Glasgow services.
Dan Air '146s were used for Gatwick - Berne replacing the '748s(runway about 1200m!) and the Gatwick - Newcastle - Stavanger - Bergen route.

[pzu]

DAn Air web site

see this web site

http://www.danair.org/

PZU - Out of Africa

[Geezers of Nazareth]

My one and only experience of flying with dan-Air was in the mid/late 80s, on a bucket-n-spade trip to Palma de Mallorca.

We pitched-up at gatwick on a Saturday evening, and checked-in our bags, and then discovered that the flight had been delayed until the following morning. We were put up in a local hotel, where 'food would be layed on for us'. It wasn't, because the chef had gone home; he'd been told we would all be there by 10pm, and we didn't start to arrive until 1am!
Back to gatwick on Sunday morning, and into the departure lounge. Managed to find an un-manned info desk, and read the screen (upside down!). We knew which gate the flight was going to, but were surprised to see the a/c type as 'DC8'!
Went to the gate, and a DC-8 duly turned-up - African Safari Airways, complete with zebra-strip tail! It was an old JAL aircraft, still with the last two numbers of its JAL registration on the nose-wheel door ('39' I think). On board, all the signs, emergency cards and plastic seat head-rests were in japanese with the JAL logo!

Quite a surreal trip. When we eventually got to Mallorca in the early afternoon the Rep had been there all night because Dan-Air couldn't tell him when the flight was going to turn-up!

What a way to run an airline.

[bean]

Chevron. Re sliding off the grass at Portsmouth that was Channel Airways or crapways as we spotters in Jersey used to call them. In August 1967 they managed to seriously damage two of their 748s in one day & also less seriously, incurred damage to one of their Viscounts in Switzerland

[wouldhave]

Thanks to everyone for their help. Its good to see memories of dan air whether they be positive or not. My last flight with them from Newcastle to Athens was delayed on the outbound (only by 4 hrs) but I remember clearly watching for her coming into land. They were taken over by BA one month later. My only regret is I never got to fly on one of the 727s operated by them.

[fido69r]

Hey, Geezers of Nazareth ...whered ya dissapear to...did you get the messages I sent you?....was disapointed by that, but it was probably my own fault...Alstec have taken me on, in terminal 5...should be interesting.

[Humanahum]

I suggest that you go to the dan air site www.danairremembered.t35.com you will see the networks as they developed working to get them all on display

[The Flying Stool]

What type of aircraft did Dan Air operate out of Newcastle for charters in 1991? It was my first every flight at the tender age of 6 years old to Mahon. I vividly remember boarding the aircraft by using ventral air stairs under the tail so that narrows it down to either 1-11s or 727s but I'm intrigued by what it was. Could anyone tell me?

Thanks

Adam