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Aviation History
1990
1990 - 1612.PDF
Mark Blacklock looks at the pressures facing Air Europe and Dan-Air as they continue to develop scheduled services. Faced with the downturn in the UK inclusive tour industry "Charter Crisis", (Flight 7-13 March,) two airlines in particular—Dan-Air and Air Europe—are striving to achieve a coun terbalancing presence in the scheduled market. Although it is often said that the charter/ scheduled division will become blurred in the new, liberalised European environment, airlines seeking to make the transition are still faced with an expensive investment in support services and the need to build a new market image. The scale of the problem was recently underlined when Dan-Air's parent company reported a £3.3 million 1989 loss, down from a £10 million 1988 profit. This has led to speculation that the airline might be sold. SHADOW OF STATE Dan-Air's first scheduled service was opened as long ago as 1956, but the carrier operated very much in the shadows of the state corporations and the chosen instrument of the private sector. "Only very thin routes that no-one else was interested in were open to us," says commercial general manager— Europe, Vic Sheppard. Dan-Air bought a small south-coast opera tor—Skyways Coach Air—and picked up routes where and when it could, including one from Heathrow when British Airways (BA) withdrew from the Inverness route. Airports policy, however, prevents Dan-Air from operating any international services from the UK's premier airport. The airline ended up with a mismatched scheduled net work which accounted for less than 10% of output in terms of tonne/kilometres, yet claimed a disproportionate amount of man agement time. Some rationalisation was under way—such as the relinquishing of the Bristol/Cardiff-Amsterdam route to Nether- lines—but the real chance to reform the structure came with the BA bid for British Caledonian. MONOPOLY OPPORTUNITY "The investigation of the BA/BCal merger by the Monopolies Commission gave Dan-Air the opportunity of getting decent city routes out of Gatwick," continues Sheppard. The carrier will now concentrate on higher A better-value business-class product is the corner stone of scheduled ambitions volume markets and, says Sheppard "We will be phasing out our smaller aircraft and thinner routes". The key route which has underpinned Dan-Air's restructuring of scheduled services is Gatwick-Paris. With up to seven flights a day, this offered a solid base on which to launch a business class and a marketing campaign. Sheppard admits that Dan-Air has been perceived in the past as a cheap charter operator, "and all that that stands for". He adds, however: "Our regular scheduled passengers on routes such as Gatwick-New- castle have always had a high regard for our services, but these were only a small propor tion of our total carryings". Dan-Air is now building up market aware ness of its wider range of scheduled activities SCHEDULED 34 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 6-12 June 1990
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