Flypast: The little airline that dared to dream big

Nov 5 2009 By Barry Dix

THEY were the perpetual underdogs of the airways, feasting on scraps of routes rejected by the 'top table'.

Many in the industry regarded them as a bit of a joke, some having the temerity to refer to them as a Del Boy-type of operator, always on the lookout for a lucrative deal and usually flying secondhand planes of a multitude of makes and pedigrees.

Even their name, Dan-Air, sounded a bit cheap and cheerful, and their slightly suspect safety record prompted many to dub them Dan Dare.

Yet this enigmatic airline remained in business for more than 40 years, becoming Britain's longest-surviving independent and Europe's largest.

As well as a myriad of scheduled services, the company also built up a hugely-successful inclusive tour network, including a longstanding deal to fly German tourists from Berlin to the Mediterranean.

And its former employees are still so loyal to the airline that, 17 years after Dan-Air

was taken over by British Airways, it has one of the most thriving ex-staff organisations of any outfit in aviation.

Dan-Air, or as it was officially known Dan-Air London so as to avoid confusion with Danair of Denmark, was founded in 1953 as a subsidiary of the London shipping brokers Davies & Newman. It took its name from the initial letters of the company name. Its initial capital was £5,000 and it operated a solitary DC-3. But, you name it and

Dan-Air eventually went on to fly it or operate from it.

Over the years, its fleet ranged from ex-BOAC Comets to a former Air Ceylon Nord 262 - the only one to ever appear on the British register.

It flew Ambassadors, Bristol Freighters, Viscounts, 707s, BAE 146s and 737s.

It even operated Boeing 727s in the 1970s and 80s - again the only UK operator to do so.

I flew to Liverpool from

Heathrow in a Cambrian Viscount early in 1970 and remember being intrigued to see that rattling in behind us that morning was a Dan-Air DC-3, inbound from Newcastle and scheduled to plod on to Cardiff and Bristol.

Despite Dan-Air's presence at most of the country's major airports, its links with LHR were few and far between.

Typical of its enterprises was its take-over of the Heathrow to Inverness service when BA pulled out in the

1980s. For a while, it even vied with the state airline on the Heathrow to Manchester run, though it struggled to persuade passengers away from the highly-efficient shuttle and the service was short-lived.

This photo, dating from September 1967, shows a rare visit by a Dan-Air DC-7 freighter, by then looking decidedly ancient even though it was less than 10 years old, having been delivered new to United Airlines in 1957.

Quite why it was being

towed sedately across towards the old Northside is anyone's guess, but it's an intriguing picture because it shows a link between two distinct eras at Heathrow.

On the left is the original control tower, built in classic RAF-style and dating from the time the airport opened in 1946. On the right is the newly-opened Custom House.

The picture was taken by Kevin McCormack and comes from his wonderfully-evocative book Bygone London, published by Ian Allan.

Dan-Air's days were numbered when tour operators started setting up their own airlines in the 1980s. In 1991, it lost £35million and the following year, in controversial circumstances, it was taken over by British Airways for the nominal sum of £1. * The Dan-Air Staff Association's 2009 reunion takes place on Sunday, November 15 at The Lancaster Club, BAE Systems, Woodford in Cheshire. For more information, email Bryancowin@aol.com or see the group's excellent website, www.danair.org.

* ON TOW: Dan-Air DC-7F G-ATAB at Heathrow in 1967. The plane was withdrawn from use and stored at Lasham before being scrapped in August 1973