Does anyone else remember Dan Air?
 

I was coming back from Amsterdam to LGW a few days ago, and the FA looking after us in Club seemed familiar to me....

and after a while,I worked out the connection.

She had been one of the heroic ladies who managed to serve a hot breakfast on the early morning flights from Gatwick to Manchester, in the days of Dan Air, before it got gobbled up by BA.

It used to be quite amazing, they could get a tasty (and satisfyingly greasy) hot cooked breakfast to a full flight of hungry travellers, in about 20 minutes.

The flight this week was not at all busy, so we had the chance for a nice memory jogging chat about those long ago days, while I glugged some champagne...

http://www.danair.org/index.html for those younger FTers around here.

Used to fly with Dan Air loads in the 1980s to Spain with my parents.

Started out on the Comets (which were weird and had some seats facing each other like to get on trains). The comets were noisey and slow but had a certain kind of grace.

Then they switched to 727s and BAC 1-11s and we went to Menorca on these every year. On year we went at Christmas and the pilot was a lady called Yvonne Sintes - I am pretty sure she was the first ever lady pilot in the UK.

Once had a 30 hour delay when a BAC 1-11 went tech and they had to fly parts out to repair it.

Flew back from Menorca in a 727 registration G-BDAN which then went on to crash in Tenerife a few days later - scary.

One of the comets I flew in is at East Fortune museum.

Thank you older FTer... ;) :D

Most of the pages on that website are blank but there is an article on Yvonne Sintes - I was right she was the first lady UK airline pilot. She also lived in Menorca which probably explained why we got her as our captain so often.

... who still tries desperately to look young.

Vividly
it was a Dan Air flight from Girona that was responsible for my 20 year "grounding" with fear of flying:eek:
A curious thing is that the flight I took in order to be "cured" was Ryanair:eek::eek:

I remember watching Dan Air aircraft on approach to NCL in my school days.

They seem to prefer an approach from the west for some reasons and seem pretty slow and I blame them for not being able to learn my times table until I was much older ;)

However, that could just be my memories distorting things. They were easy to identify by its red tail logo in those days.

Flew a few times but avoided like the plague when possible. Last DA flight, the armrest literally fell apart and onto the floor (not just the pad but the whole caboddle). Persuaded me that the planes really had had their day, and beyond ...

I do believe our own dear Pucci was not only BCal but may have been DA before that. Perhaps I am imagining it ??

Possibly the worst airline I ever flew to Faro. 20 hour delay in Manchester and only cold food served both there and back!

Yes!
I'd better as we flew them on honeymoon to Alicante in October 1970.Flew a Comet 4 IIRC.

Ahhh, I was Dan Air 1983 vintage!!! It was my introduction into the big bad world of being cabin crew, hard to believe Im still here!!!:D

When BA took over Dan Air it was able to add Dan Air's flights between Gatwick and Madrid to its own as well as acquiring, instantly, the rest of a sizable operation out of LGW. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if BA's LGW-MAD operation is today as small as Dan Air's was at that time. (I know that with easyJet, Air Comet and now Ryanair on the route it's a different world.)

It's interesting as I had fond memories of Dan Air even though I had never flown with them :) When I was a young child, I used to love watching airplanes and my father used to take me to the airport for some plane spotting. At that time, Dan Air had quite a few aircraft going through Aberdeen airport so the airline triggers some fond memories for me :)

In my formative years, DA operated quasi-scheduled services between Gatwick and Zurich - officially charters but you could book any duration - and I used them a lot in the :eek: 70s. Also charters to the Med.

We booked a Ving (remember them?) last minute holiday to the Algarve and I was looking forward to travelling on their Comet IV to Faro. I was disappointed when they substituted a 727.

Remember their charter catering? Two flaps in the back of the seat in front - the top one with a 'meal' (sandwich) outbound, the lower one for the inbound. Did anybody use both? :p

Then there was the Danish company Danair, which sometimes led to confusion.

Trivia time: what did the Dan of Dan-Air stand for? Answer: Davies & Newman.

good old dan dare.. i flew them back from brussels the week it was announced that BA were taking them over.

I remember them. I believe my first flight was on Dan Air to somewhere in Spain. Now I just think of them and it reminds me of Alan Partridge.

My second ever flight was Newcastle to Jersey on a Dan-air BAC 1-11.

They helped me over my early flying nightmares after a first ever flight on an Air-uk turbo prop :(

Dan Air, that does bring back memories even though I´m still very young:D:Dha ha. They used to fly pretty regularly to ARN during the 70´s with that "beautiful" Comet (you know, the one at the end of the runway they use for fire drill!!). Never flew it but my mates came over for a weekend, and they paid £19 including 2 nights in a "..hotel.." if my memory is correct:eek:

My first ever flight was Dan Air, LGW-FRA (I think!) on a school trip. We bussed from Scotland to LGW to make the flight :eek:

first ever flight too
 

my first ever flight was also with Dan Air,
Leeds Bradford to Jersey in the Channel Islands, i was so excited i jumped up and down and my glasses fell off in the departure lounge....the crew gave me a "captain dan hare" cuddly toy as a welcome gift....;)

My first flight was also on Dan Air. It was on a school trip so many of the passengers were teenagers who had never flown. It was a Comet and I remember being told that the windows in the early Comets fell out because they were square (someting to do with pressure build up in the corners).

To make it worse we hit very heavy turbulance. At this point the whole plane started screaming (not saying if I did!). The Dan Air crew were excellent and it cleatly didn't have a lasting effect on me.

I remember a Dan Air flight bound for Aldergrove (Belfast International now) landing mistakenly at the nearby Langford Lodge airfield. Must have been the 80's.

DanAir -My first flight-and my mother's last. Circa 1970 LGW PMI on a Comet.
My mother was petrified-weird considering she was an ex Sir Henry Lunn employee and used to travel at staff rate quite happily in the days the planes flew through the Alps not over them. She never flew after that for pleasure (just to one or two funerals where time was of the essence) and we vacationed on cruises out of Southampton instead.

My father owned a small travel agency chain so my Saturday and holiday job -and subsequent first real job involved booking lots of DanAir flights-so I guess they really were a part of my childhood/growing up.

I remember them well and particularly remember a flight about 16 years ago from CPH to NCL via, I think, ABZ. We got to ABZ and the ABZ passengers disembarked (or at least all bar one of them did!) and we then sat for a further half an hour while the FAs did numerous headcounts and made umpteen announcements that this was Aberdeen and anyone wishing to disembark there should do so now. Eventually someone had the bright idea of cross-referencing the manifest with our boarding-passes ^ Why it took them so long to think of that I don't know but the 'excess' passenger was found and left the plane. I think alcohol may have played a part in his geographical confusion!!

My first ever flight was Dan Air to Stavanger then on to Bergen in Norway on a school ski trip out of Newcastle. They will always hold a special place in my heart.

As well as the BA shuttle on the 757 to BFS, we had these treats from Dan Air to look forward to. They were not the only ones, i think there was a spanish airline (?) about the same time. I have been on one flight in recent years where i think from the descent pattern we were about to do the same, as we started to gain altitude again about Langford lodge!

My first scheduled flight as a child was on Dan Air from NCL-LGW, all previous flights had been BY charter flights for the family holiday.

It's so long ago I don't remember much of the flight, there was food served with metal cutlery which you'd never get these days. I remember thinking Gatwick was huge at the time (particularly considering how small NCL was at the time) and although I've used LGW a number of times since it's been the only time I've used the South Terminal.

I do miss the old layout of NCL which remained for many years. The rooftop viewing area, the landside cafe with good views of the aircraft. It made dropping people off at the airport a pleasure, you could relax with them until they really needed to get through security. Now there's nothing really decent airside.

MAN/LGW
 

BA flight numbers on the above still same (albeit with a '9' in front of them) as when BCal on the route... then transferred to Dan Air!!

Anyone remember the Romanian (Tarom) 1/11 on the first one out and last one back ?

Tarom Purser and Pilots...

still got p))ed though... 3rd G and T over Stockport ( 0n the way back that is!!)

Hmmmm UFGBOY, Im wondering if from your handle you have spent time on the lovely Tristar queen of the skies?
I certainly do remember Tarom, the airline I was working for at the time did a bit of work with them, but some of us refused as there were no lifejackets under the seats and the crew would drink alcohol with their crew meals! (if only!!!!)
Loving this thread, my geekiness can really come into its own:D

[pedant]
Are you referring to the Rombac 1-11s (manufactured in Romania under licence from BAC) or Tarom, the Romanian airline?
[/pedant]

I used both on occasion, even a Tarom Rombac 1-11. :p

My first flight was also on Dan Air - LGW to Santorini on a 727 in 1984. Had to stop at Athens on the return journey to refuel.

I had a trip from LGW to DUB in 1988 which I think was Dan Air. The organiser lived next to a Dan Air pilot and gave a card signed by his neighbour to one of the cabin crew. Those of us who were interested got to see the cockpit.
That brings home how long ago it was.
JP.

I remember trips when I was a youth, but to be honest cant remember the service as it was all just an adventure being in the sky.;)

Funny how it seems most had their first flights on Dan Air. Mine was also in 1972 in a Comet LGW - Naples, on a school trip (but we returned from Venice on a BCal 1-11). Sat in row 2 facing row 1, it was strange seeing rear facing seats on a plane, which I didn't see again until Club World.

When I was working in a travel agency I remember the most popular route was LGW-ABZ we had a number of oil rig workers who use DA as the flight times worked in with the departure to the rigs.

Last DA flights were LGW-ZRH-LGW in 1983, DA had not long had this route and we were on an educational to Switzerland. I remember the service was very good and the catering was too.

Darling, this is Dan-Air (Bing Bong I know that they do not show documentaries on Nickelodeon, and that the plot of Corrie and Eastenders may prove a challenge - but do pay attention!) not Imperial Airways.

Poor Dan Air may have done the most dreadful charters but the Scheduled flights had a wonderful Class Elite that was streets ahead of anything else in Europe BA included. The crews who came to us thought that they had died and gone to heaven as the work was nothing compared to what they used to do. I did not know that they flew LGW- MAN as I thought that they operated out of LHR to INV. I thought that it was LHR-MAN but that is a while ago! BCAL flew LGW-MAN and it was hot croissants rather than a cooked breakfast on those 1-11s. The hot water was impossible and we regularly served luke warm drinks if we could get them to work at all and we had sort of hot cupboards rather than proper ovens by then. We used to pary that we would not get anything on our starched white blouses (swine to iron!) as we were inspected all the time and woe betide any hostess with a stained uniform blouse!

Anyhow, as you will have surmised - yes lots of us do remember and indeed among the crew last night were one ex-British Airtours, one ex Dan-Air crew two BCAL Beauties ( *:rolleyes:), one ex BMed, two ex GB Airtours - in fact they were great. No direction needed - knew exactly what and how to do everything.

Found this about Dan Air Elite Class:

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%202019.html

We had multiple flights on that route in a Dan Air Bae 146.

Delightfully quiet, & altogether most civilised ;-)

I remember eying the Dan-Air Comets at LGW enviously in the mid-1970s as I taxied past aboard BCal metal. Devastated that I never got to fly in one. By the time I was old enough to make my own travel arrangements the Comets were gone.

My first ever flight was with Dan Dare from Gatwick to Malaga in 1978.