Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1980 > Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies > Report No. 14 - Aer Lingus, Teoranta and Aerlínte Éireann, Teoranta

APPENDIX 11

MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED BY DAN-AIR SERVICES LIMITED

Introduction

Dan-Air Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of Davies and Newman Holdings Limited, a publicly quoted Company on the London Stock Exchange. The parent Company—Davies and Newman which has its origins in shipping and associate activities was established in 1922. The activities of the Davies and Newman Group include Tanker Chartering, Maritime and Offshore Servicing, Aviation Engineering, Aircraft Leasing, Tour Operating, Travel Agency, Handling, Catering and Bonded Stores.

Dan-Air Services derives its name from the first letters of the two names of the parent Company—Davies and Newman. Dan-Air came into being in 1953 and is the longest established British airline still functioning under the same management.

Resources and Management

Approximately 3,500 persons are employed in the Dan-Air group, including 1,500 who are employed by Dan-Air Engineering—the wholly owned subsidiary of Dan-Air Services Limited.

The Dan-Air 1980 fleet of forty-eight aircraft is as follows:

The above aircraft, together with aircraft belonging to other airlines are maintained by Dan-Air Engineering whose principal bases are at Lasham, Hampshire and Manchester.

During 1979 Dan-Air carried over 3.5 million passengers and an estimated 4,560 million passenger-kilometres were flown.

Breakdown of Activities

In the early years Dan-Air was almost exclusively a Charter airline. In recent years however, the business has been considerably diversified and in addition to UK Originating Charter and Inclusive Tour Traffic, the Company now flies an increasing amount of Foreign Originating business, has developed a network of Scheduled Services and is the principal provider of fixed wing aircraft for the UK North Sea Oil and Gas Exploration industry. A breakdown of present flying activity is given below:

Scheduled Services

Scheduled Services are of growing importance and although the first Scheduled Service was operated as long ago as 1962 it has been in the last eight years that the growth of this activity has accelerated. The principal areas of Scheduled Service operations are UK-Ireland, UK-Germany, UK-Holland, UK-Norway, UK-Switzerland, UK-France, and UK-Domestic Services. International Services are broken down into the following route groups:—

1. Republic of Ireland:

Bristol/Cardiff and Newcastle-Dublin

Bristol/Cardiff-Cork

2. France:

London Gatwick-Strasbourg, Dijon, Clermont Ferrand, Montpellier, Perpignan Toulouse

Bristol/Cardiff-Paris Charles de Gaulle

3. Holland:

Teeside and Bristol/Cardiff-Amsterdam

4. Norway:

London Gatwick-Bergen, Kristiansand

Newcastle-Stavanger, Bergen

5. Switzerland:

London Gatwick-Berne

6. Germany:

London Gatwick-Munich

To sell its Scheduled Services Dan-Air has a network of sales staff and reservations offices throughout the UK and abroad. A computerised system is used for processing reservations (MCS SHARES SYSTEM having been adopted by both British Caledonian and Dan-Air). Last year more than half a million passengers were carried on Dan-Air Scheduled Services, and in 1980 the Company expects to carry over 600,000 passengers on its Scheduled routes.

Charter Services

Dan-Air flies inclusive tour passengers for almost every British charterer, and one in every three British holiday-makers will have been carried to his or her destination on a Dan-Air aircraft. Dan-Air is completely independent, and not vertically-integrated with any large tour operator; and many clients have been coming back over the years for repeat business. Dan-Air has also concentrated on ‘export’ business, and for many years has held significant contracts to fly Berliners to their holiday destinations; Dan-Air has also been extremely active in promoting inclusive tour city-flights into London and the rest of the United Kingdom, and over the last few years has operated substantial programmes for tour operators in Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Italy. In short, Dan-Air’s fleet of modern jet aircraft are familiar sights at holiday airports throughout Europe and North Africa—in Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Germany, Tunisia and Morocco. And more recently, with the development of incoming ‘city’ flights, passengers have been able to experience the benefit of low charter fares on many important intra-Europe trunk routes.

September 1980