Dan-Air Engineering
Encyclopedia
Dan Air Engineering Limited was the maintenance arm of Dan Air Services Limited
, one of Britain
's foremost wholly privately owned, independentindependent from government-owned corporation
s airlines during the 1970s and 80s.
Dan-Air Engineering was established in 1954 at Lasham Airfield
to maintain the fledgling airline's rapidly growing fleet as well as to cater to the maintenance requirements of third parties.
The organisation embarked on a major expansion during the 1970s, following the introduction of several new aircraft types into its sister airline's fleet. This led to the opening of a new maintenance base at Manchester.
Further expansion followed in the 1980s, leading to the opening of a new widebody
-capable maintenance facility at Gatwick
, its sister airline's main operating base.
Following its sister airline's adoption of a new corporate strategy at the beginning of the 1990s, which resulted in a simpler, less maintenance-intensive fleet mix, Dan-Air Engineering was put up for sale as its capacity exceeded the sister airline's maintenance requirements by 45%.
FLS Aerospace
acquired Dan-Air Engineering on 28 February 1991 for £
27.5 million.
s in 1954, the airline selected Lasham Airfield, an old Royal Air Force
wartime airfield near the northeast Hampshire
town of Basingstoke
, as its maintenance base due to the ample availability of hangar space. (Meredith Air Transport, whose operation at Southend
Dan-Air had taken over at the time of its formation, lacked adequate maintenance facilities at that airport. When the fledgling airline moved its operating base to Blackbushe
in 1955, it continued to face a shortage of adequate maintenance facilities as Airwork, Britavia
, Eagle, Silver City and Westminster Airways
, whose presence at the airport predated Dan-Air's, had already occupied most of the available hangar space. Blackbushe's lack of space resulted from its former use as a military airfield where no provision had been made for future commercial operations. The airport's biggest drawback was its location on both sides of the A30
along the Hampshire-Surrey
county
border, with the terminal and apron
to the north and the maintenance area to the south, and taxiways as well as one of the runways crossing it. This arrangement necessitated frequent closures of the busy road on account of aircraft moving across it, thereby preventing the efficient use of both road and airport as well as ruling out the latter's expansion.)
At the time, Lasham Airfield was in excellent condition, featuring a newly resurfaced runway and a large, empty hangar. (The Air Ministry
had decided to upgrade the airfield following the end of the Berlin Airlift
in preparation for further Cold War
tensions.)
Eventually, Davies and Newman, the parent company
of both the airline and its new engineering offshoot, managed to negotiate a 21-year lease
of the airfield's maintenance facilities with the Air Ministry.
, following sister company Dan-Air's purchase of a pair of de Havilland Comet
series 4 jetliners from British Overseas Airways Corporation
(BOAC) in 1966. These aircraft were ferried from BOAC's Heathrow
base to Lasham during the early summer of that year for conversion by Dan-Air Engineering from a 74-seat, low-density, two-class long-haul scheduled configuration into a 99-seat, high-density, single-class short- to medium-haul inclusive tour (IT) layout. This conversion also involved structurally "reinforcing" the aircraft — including strengthening the cabin floor and the wing root
s — as they were expected to perform many more takeoffs and landings after entering service with Dan-Air (compared with their original role at BOAC). Subsequently acquired, larger Comet series 4B and 4C aircraft underwent similar structural modifications to enable them to carry up to 119 passengers before entering service with sister airline Dan-Air.
Dan-Air's acquisition of its first two BAC One-Eleven
s from American Airlines
in 1969 necessitated a major modification programme at Lasham before these aircraft could join the UK civil aircraft register
as these were 400 series models that had been built to comply with US
airworthiness requirements, which differed in several important aspects from the UK
's airworthiness requirements.
The introduction of Dan-Air's first American
-built jet aircraft
, an ex-Pan Am Boeing 707
320 series "Intercontinental", in 1971 eventually led to Dan-Air Engineering being granted "FAA
Repair Station" status. This meant that it could perform maintenance, repair and overhaul
(MRO) tasks on aircraft that were on the US civil aircraft register and/or were governed by US airworthiness standards.
Dan-Air's decision to become the first British
operator of the Boeing 727
resulted in the purchase of three 100 series examples from Japan Airlines
in 1972. As these aircraft lacked high frequency
(HF) radios, they needed to be flown in several stages across the Pacific
to the US. There they underwent an extensive modification programme at Boeing
's Wichita
plant in Kansas
to comply with British Civil Airworthiness Requirements (BCAR). These modifications entailed the installation of two additional emergency doors each side of the rear fuselage and a full stall
-protection system, including a stick pusher
. Dan-Air Engineering manufactured new galleys and installed these together with 150 seats in each aircraft at its Lasham base. The aircraft were also repainted at Lasham prior to their entry into service with Dan-Air in 1973.
By the mid-1970s, Dan-Air Engineering's workforce had expanded to more than 800, the vast majority of whom were based at Lasham.
The continuing, rapid expansion of the Dan-Air fleet during the 1970s as well as growing third-party work during that period resulted in the opening of Dan-Air Engineering's second maintenance base at Manchester Airport in 1976. The new Manchester base took over Lasham's maintenance of Dan-Air's One-Eleven
and Hawker Siddeley 748 fleets. It also developed third-party de Havilland Canada Dash 7
and McDonnell Douglas MD-80 maintenance capabilities, as a result of which Lasham began to specialise in the maintenance of all Boeing
narrowbodied aircraft
types.
Eventually, Dan-Air Engineering became the second biggest employer at Manchester Airport (after the airport authority).
Dan-Air had its entire 17-strong One-Eleven fleet hush-kitted at Dan-Air Engineering's Manchester base by the end of 1985.
By the late-1980s, Dan-Air Engineering's total workforce had almost doubled to 1,500. (This was in addition to Dan-Air's 3,000-strong workforce at the time, resulting in a total employee strength of 4,500 for the entire Davies and Newman group during that period.)
, its sister airline Dan-Air's main operating base since 1960. At that time Dan-Air Engineering maintained over 100 aircraft, including Dan-Air's 50-strong fleet. The new Gatwick maintenance base featured Dan-Air Engineering's first and only widebody-capable hangar (located at the airport's northwest side). HRH Princess Alexandra
conducted the official opening ceremony for Dan-Air Engineering's new hangar at Gatwick Airport
on 18 April 1989.The Gatwick hangar could handle all Western-built widebodied aircraft — including the Boeing 747
, then the world's largest widebodied airliner
in commercial airline service.
Davies and Newman's decision to establish a new, widebody-capable maintenance facility operated by maintenance subsidiary
Dan-Air Engineering at airline subsidiary Dan-Air's Gatwick base was taken in response to the following events:
The opening of Dan-Air Engineering's third maintenance base resulted in an increase in the engineering unit's total staffing level to over 1,600.
in the Gulf
led to a change in both organisations' parent company Davies and Newman's top management. This in turn resulted in a change in the airline's strategic
direction with profound implications for the engineering unit's future.
The new management's decision to focus Dan-Air's future activities on the provision of fully fledged scheduled services on high-profile domestic and international Europe
an trunk routes from the airline's Gatwick base with a fleet of brand-new Boeing 737
300/400 series and BAe 146
300 series/Avro
RJ115 jets meant that Dan-Air Engineering's capacity exceeded its sister airline's maintenance requirements by 45%.
At the same time, Dan-Air Engineering was facing growing competition in the global third-party MRO market from rival specialist providers with far greater economies of scale
, considerably lower labour cost
s and much more powerful parent organisations in places such as China
, the Middle East
and the Republic of Ireland
.
As a result, Davies and Newman was no longer in a position to fund the competing investment
requirements of both its airline and engineering subsidiaries from its own, limited financial resources. It therefore decided to focus all its resources on Dan-Air and to sell off Dan-Air Engineering to a major, specialist MRO provider with the expertise and resources to continue investing in it.
In the event, Davies and Newman sold Dan-Air Engineering to FLS Aerospace, a major specialist MRO provider in the UK and Ireland
with bases at Stansted
, Manchester and Dublin
, for £27.5 million on February 28, 1991. The sale of Dan-Air Engineering to FLS Aerospace resulted in a reduction in employment at the remaining Davies and Newman group companies from 4,000 to 2,500, almost all of whom continued to be employed at Dan-Air.
Following Dan-Air Engineering's sale, Dan-Air awarded FLS Aerospace the contract for the maintenance of its fleet.
(FLS Aerospace's loss of the Dan-Air maintenance contract as a result of the airline's takeover by British Airways in 1992 led to the decommissioning and mothballing of the hangars it had acquired from Dan-Air Engineering at Gatwick and Lasham. The Gatwick hangar was subsequently brought back into service in the late-1990s following British Airways's decision to make the airport a major hub
. It was decommissioned once more as a consequence of British Airways's subsequent decision to de-hub Gatwick, following the adoption of a new corporate strategy aimed at restructuring the airline's loss-making operation at the airport in the aftermath of recording its first-ever full-year loss since privatisation in 2000. Most recently, on 1 August 2006, Virgin Atlantic
took over this hangar to provide an in-house maintenance capability for its growing Boeing 747-400 fleet at Gatwick as well as to support sister airline Virgin Nigeria's daily Airbus A340
operation from/to Lagos
at the airport.
Meanwhile, FLS Aerospace itself was acquired by SR Technics, the former maintenance arm of defunct Swissair
, in 2004. Towards the end of 2006, SR Technics in turn was jointly taken over by the governments of Abu Dhabi
and Dubai
(through Mubadala
and Dubai Aerospace Enterprise
, respectively), who then incorporated it into their nascent MRO venture.
The former Dan-Air Engineering maintenance base at Lasham was acquired by ATC Lasham, a Boeing
MRO specialist, in 1995.)
Dan-Air
Dan-Air was a leading private, independentindependent from government-owned corporations airline based in the United Kingdom....
, one of Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's foremost wholly privately owned, independentindependent from government-owned corporation
Government-owned corporation
A government-owned corporation, state-owned company, state-owned entity, state enterprise, publicly owned corporation, government business enterprise, or parastatal is a legal entity created by a government to undertake commercial activities on behalf of an owner government...
s airlines during the 1970s and 80s.
Dan-Air Engineering was established in 1954 at Lasham Airfield
Lasham Airfield
Lasham Airfield is located north-west of Alton in Hampshire, England, in the village of Lasham.It was built in 1942 and it was an operational RAF during the Second World War. It was used for recreational gliding from 1951. The airfield is now owned by the world's largest gliding club, Lasham...
to maintain the fledgling airline's rapidly growing fleet as well as to cater to the maintenance requirements of third parties.
The organisation embarked on a major expansion during the 1970s, following the introduction of several new aircraft types into its sister airline's fleet. This led to the opening of a new maintenance base at Manchester.
Further expansion followed in the 1980s, leading to the opening of a new widebody
Wide-body aircraft
A wide-body aircraft is a large airliner with two passenger aisles, also known as a widebody aircraft or twin-aisle aircraft. The typical fuselage diameter is . In the typical wide-body economy cabin, passengers are seated seven to ten abreast, allowing a total capacity of 200 to 850 passengers...
-capable maintenance facility at Gatwick
London Gatwick Airport
Gatwick Airport is located 3.1 miles north of the centre of Crawley, West Sussex, and south of Central London. Previously known as London Gatwick,In 2010, the name changed from London Gatwick Airport to Gatwick Airport...
, its sister airline's main operating base.
Following its sister airline's adoption of a new corporate strategy at the beginning of the 1990s, which resulted in a simpler, less maintenance-intensive fleet mix, Dan-Air Engineering was put up for sale as its capacity exceeded the sister airline's maintenance requirements by 45%.
FLS Aerospace
FLS
FLS is a three letter acronym that can refer to:* Fire life safety* Fellow of the Linnean Society of London* First Language School, a high school in Varna, Bulgaria* First Level Support, a support level in a multi-tiered technical support structure...
acquired Dan-Air Engineering on 28 February 1991 for £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
27.5 million.
History
Dan-Air's growing and varied fleet necessitated the development of a comprehensive 'in-house' maintenance capability from the very beginning itself. This led to the establishment of sister company Dan-Air Engineering in 1954, the airline's second year of operation.A new maintenance base
Following Dan-Air's acquisition of three Avro YorkAvro York
The Avro York was a British transport aircraft that was derived from the Second World War Lancaster heavy bomber, and used in both military and airliner roles between 1943 and 1964.-Design and development:...
s in 1954, the airline selected Lasham Airfield, an old Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
wartime airfield near the northeast Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
town of Basingstoke
Basingstoke
Basingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, in south central England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2008 it had an estimated population of...
, as its maintenance base due to the ample availability of hangar space. (Meredith Air Transport, whose operation at Southend
London Southend Airport
London Southend Airport or Southend Airport is a regional airport in the district of Rochford within Essex, England.During the 1960s, Southend was the third-busiest airport in the United Kingdom. It remained London's third-busiest airport in terms of passengers handled until the end of the 1970s,...
Dan-Air had taken over at the time of its formation, lacked adequate maintenance facilities at that airport. When the fledgling airline moved its operating base to Blackbushe
Blackbushe Airport
Blackbushe Airport , in the civil parish of Yateley in the north-east corner of the English county of Hampshire, comprises an airfield, much reduced in size since its heyday, a British Car Auctions site, a kart track owned by Camberley Kart Club, and a small business park...
in 1955, it continued to face a shortage of adequate maintenance facilities as Airwork, Britavia
British Aviation Services
British Aviation Services Limited was an early post-World War II airline holding company and air transport operator that could trace its roots back to 1946. Its main activities included trooping, inclusive tour and worldwide passenger and freight charter services...
, Eagle, Silver City and Westminster Airways
Westminster Airways
Westminster Airways was a British airline formed in 1946 to operate air charters. It later acquired freighter aircraft and was involved in the Berlin Airlift, but ceased operations shortly after.-History:...
, whose presence at the airport predated Dan-Air's, had already occupied most of the available hangar space. Blackbushe's lack of space resulted from its former use as a military airfield where no provision had been made for future commercial operations. The airport's biggest drawback was its location on both sides of the A30
A30 road
The 284 miles A30 road from London to Land's End, historically known as the Great South West Road used to provide the most direct route from London to the south west; more recently the M3 motorway and A303 road performs this function for much of the route and only parts of A30 now retain trunk...
along the Hampshire-Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
county
Counties of England
Counties of England are areas used for the purposes of administrative, geographical and political demarcation. For administrative purposes, England outside Greater London and the Isles of Scilly is divided into 83 counties. The counties may consist of a single district or be divided into several...
border, with the terminal and apron
Airport ramp
The airport ramp or apron is part of an airport. It is usually the area where aircraft are parked, unloaded or loaded, refueled or boarded. Although the use of the apron is covered by regulations, such as lighting on vehicles, it is typically more accessible to users than the runway or taxiway...
to the north and the maintenance area to the south, and taxiways as well as one of the runways crossing it. This arrangement necessitated frequent closures of the busy road on account of aircraft moving across it, thereby preventing the efficient use of both road and airport as well as ruling out the latter's expansion.)
At the time, Lasham Airfield was in excellent condition, featuring a newly resurfaced runway and a large, empty hangar. (The Air Ministry
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...
had decided to upgrade the airfield following the end of the Berlin Airlift
Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...
in preparation for further Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
tensions.)
Eventually, Davies and Newman, the parent company
Parent company
A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors; the second company being deemed as a subsidiary of the parent company...
of both the airline and its new engineering offshoot, managed to negotiate a 21-year lease
Lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...
of the airfield's maintenance facilities with the Air Ministry.
Major expansion in the 1970s and early- to mid-1980s
Dan-Air Engineering's first phase of major expansion occurred at LashamLasham Airfield
Lasham Airfield is located north-west of Alton in Hampshire, England, in the village of Lasham.It was built in 1942 and it was an operational RAF during the Second World War. It was used for recreational gliding from 1951. The airfield is now owned by the world's largest gliding club, Lasham...
, following sister company Dan-Air's purchase of a pair of de Havilland Comet
De Havilland Comet
The de Havilland DH 106 Comet was the world's first commercial jet airliner to reach production. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland at the Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom headquarters, it first flew in 1949 and was a landmark in aeronautical design...
series 4 jetliners from British Overseas Airways Corporation
British Overseas Airways Corporation
The British Overseas Airways Corporation was the British state airline from 1939 until 1946 and the long-haul British state airline from 1946 to 1974. The company started life with a merger between Imperial Airways Ltd. and British Airways Ltd...
(BOAC) in 1966. These aircraft were ferried from BOAC's Heathrow
London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow , in the London Borough of Hillingdon, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the third busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic, handling more international passengers than any other airport around the globe...
base to Lasham during the early summer of that year for conversion by Dan-Air Engineering from a 74-seat, low-density, two-class long-haul scheduled configuration into a 99-seat, high-density, single-class short- to medium-haul inclusive tour (IT) layout. This conversion also involved structurally "reinforcing" the aircraft — including strengthening the cabin floor and the wing root
Wing root
The wing root is the part of the wing on a fixed-wing aircraft that is closest to the fuselage. On a simple monoplane configuration, this is usually easy to identify...
s — as they were expected to perform many more takeoffs and landings after entering service with Dan-Air (compared with their original role at BOAC). Subsequently acquired, larger Comet series 4B and 4C aircraft underwent similar structural modifications to enable them to carry up to 119 passengers before entering service with sister airline Dan-Air.
Dan-Air's acquisition of its first two BAC One-Eleven
BAC One-Eleven
The British Aircraft Corporation One-Eleven, also known as the BAC-111, BAC-1-11 or BAC 1-11, was a British short-range jet airliner of the 1960s and 1970s...
s from American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
in 1969 necessitated a major modification programme at Lasham before these aircraft could join the UK civil aircraft register
United Kingdom aircraft registration
United Kingdom aircraft registration is a register and means of identifcation for British owned and operated commercial and private aircraft, they are identified by registration letters starting with the prefix G-.-Registration:...
as these were 400 series models that had been built to comply with US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
airworthiness requirements, which differed in several important aspects from the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's airworthiness requirements.
The introduction of Dan-Air's first American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-built jet aircraft
Jet aircraft
A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines. Jet aircraft generally fly much faster than propeller-powered aircraft and at higher altitudes – as high as . At these altitudes, jet engines achieve maximum efficiency over long distances. The engines in propeller-powered aircraft...
, an ex-Pan Am Boeing 707
Boeing 707
The Boeing 707 is a four-engine narrow-body commercial passenger jet airliner developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. Its name is most commonly pronounced as "Seven Oh Seven". The first airline to operate the 707 was Pan American World Airways, inaugurating the type's first commercial flight on...
320 series "Intercontinental", in 1971 eventually led to Dan-Air Engineering being granted "FAA
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
Repair Station" status. This meant that it could perform maintenance, repair and overhaul
Maintenance, Repair and Operations
Maintenance, repair, and operations or maintenance, repair, and overhaul involves fixing any sort of mechanical or electrical device should it become out of order or broken...
(MRO) tasks on aircraft that were on the US civil aircraft register and/or were governed by US airworthiness standards.
Dan-Air's decision to become the first British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
operator of the Boeing 727
Boeing 727
The Boeing 727 is a mid-size, narrow-body, three-engine, T-tailed commercial jet airliner, manufactured by Boeing. The Boeing 727 first flew in 1963, and for over a decade more were built per year than any other jet airliner. When production ended in 1984 a total of 1,832 aircraft had been produced...
resulted in the purchase of three 100 series examples from Japan Airlines
Japan Airlines
is an airline headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. It is the flag carrier of Japan and its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Tokyo International Airport , as well as Nagoya's Chūbu Centrair International Airport and Osaka's Kansai International Airport...
in 1972. As these aircraft lacked high frequency
High frequency
High frequency radio frequencies are between 3 and 30 MHz. Also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decameters . Frequencies immediately below HF are denoted Medium-frequency , and the next higher frequencies are known as Very high frequency...
(HF) radios, they needed to be flown in several stages across the Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
to the US. There they underwent an extensive modification programme at Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
's Wichita
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
plant in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
to comply with British Civil Airworthiness Requirements (BCAR). These modifications entailed the installation of two additional emergency doors each side of the rear fuselage and a full stall
Stall (flight)
In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil as angle of attack increases. This occurs when the critical angle of attack of the foil is exceeded...
-protection system, including a stick pusher
Stick pusher
A stick pusher is a device installed in some fixed-wing aircraft to prevent the aircraft from entering an aerodynamic stall. Some large fixed-wing aircraft display poor post-stall handling characteristics or are vulnerable to deep stall...
. Dan-Air Engineering manufactured new galleys and installed these together with 150 seats in each aircraft at its Lasham base. The aircraft were also repainted at Lasham prior to their entry into service with Dan-Air in 1973.
By the mid-1970s, Dan-Air Engineering's workforce had expanded to more than 800, the vast majority of whom were based at Lasham.
The continuing, rapid expansion of the Dan-Air fleet during the 1970s as well as growing third-party work during that period resulted in the opening of Dan-Air Engineering's second maintenance base at Manchester Airport in 1976. The new Manchester base took over Lasham's maintenance of Dan-Air's One-Eleven
BAC One-Eleven
The British Aircraft Corporation One-Eleven, also known as the BAC-111, BAC-1-11 or BAC 1-11, was a British short-range jet airliner of the 1960s and 1970s...
and Hawker Siddeley 748 fleets. It also developed third-party de Havilland Canada Dash 7
De Havilland Canada Dash 7
The de Havilland Canada DHC-7, popularly known as the Dash 7, is a turboprop-powered regional airliner with STOL capabilities. It first flew in 1975 and remained in production until 1988 when the parent company, de Havilland Canada, was purchased by Boeing and was later sold to Bombardier...
and McDonnell Douglas MD-80 maintenance capabilities, as a result of which Lasham began to specialise in the maintenance of all Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
narrowbodied aircraft
Narrow-body aircraft
A narrow-body aircraft is an airliner with a fuselage aircraft cabin width typically of 3 to 4 metres , and airline seat arranged 2 to 6 abreast along a single aisle...
types.
Eventually, Dan-Air Engineering became the second biggest employer at Manchester Airport (after the airport authority).
Dan-Air had its entire 17-strong One-Eleven fleet hush-kitted at Dan-Air Engineering's Manchester base by the end of 1985.
By the late-1980s, Dan-Air Engineering's total workforce had almost doubled to 1,500. (This was in addition to Dan-Air's 3,000-strong workforce at the time, resulting in a total employee strength of 4,500 for the entire Davies and Newman group during that period.)
Further expansion in the late-1980s
On 28 February 1989 Dan-Air Engineering opened its third base at London GatwickLondon Gatwick Airport
Gatwick Airport is located 3.1 miles north of the centre of Crawley, West Sussex, and south of Central London. Previously known as London Gatwick,In 2010, the name changed from London Gatwick Airport to Gatwick Airport...
, its sister airline Dan-Air's main operating base since 1960. At that time Dan-Air Engineering maintained over 100 aircraft, including Dan-Air's 50-strong fleet. The new Gatwick maintenance base featured Dan-Air Engineering's first and only widebody-capable hangar (located at the airport's northwest side). HRH Princess Alexandra
Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy
Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy is the youngest granddaughter of King George V of the United Kingdom and Mary of Teck. She is the widow of Sir Angus Ogilvy...
conducted the official opening ceremony for Dan-Air Engineering's new hangar at Gatwick Airport
London Gatwick Airport
Gatwick Airport is located 3.1 miles north of the centre of Crawley, West Sussex, and south of Central London. Previously known as London Gatwick,In 2010, the name changed from London Gatwick Airport to Gatwick Airport...
on 18 April 1989.The Gatwick hangar could handle all Western-built widebodied aircraft — including the Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
, then the world's largest widebodied airliner
Airliner
An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft for transporting passengers and cargo. Such aircraft are operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an aircraft intended for carrying multiple passengers in commercial...
in commercial airline service.
Davies and Newman's decision to establish a new, widebody-capable maintenance facility operated by maintenance subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
Dan-Air Engineering at airline subsidiary Dan-Air's Gatwick base was taken in response to the following events:
- Gatwick had experienced rapid growth since the late-1970s, with an increasing number of movements at the airport accounted for by widebodied aircraft, including those operated by US carriers on transatlanticTransatlantic flightTransatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. A transatlantic flight may proceed east-to-west, originating in Europe or Africa and terminating in North America or South America, or it may go in the reverse direction, west-to-east...
scheduled services. - The collapse of Laker AirwaysLaker AirwaysLaker Airways was a wholly private, British independentindependent from government-owned corporations airline founded by Sir Freddie Laker in 1966. It originally was a charter airline flying passengers and cargo worldwide...
, Gatwick's largest resident operator of widebodied equipment since the early-70s, during the early part of the 1980s had led to the concentration of all widebody-capable hangarage and associated maintenance capabilities in the hands of British CaledonianBritish CaledonianBritish Caledonian was a private, British independentindependent from government-owned corporations airline, operating out of Gatwick Airport in the 1970s and 1980s...
. British Caledonian was the airport's largest resident operator and its leading scheduled airline, which also happened to be the main transatlantic competitor of most of the Gatwick-based US carriers. The result was a shortage of independently owned/operated, widebody-capable maintenance facilities at Gatwick. (The unease of these US carriers at having to rely on widebody-capable maintenance facilities controlled by their main transatlantic competitor for their Gatwick operations grew when British AirwaysBritish AirwaysBritish Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
, a far bigger as well as operationally and financially stronger airline than British Caledonian, inherited these facilities as a result of its takeover of that airline during the latter part of the 1980s.) - Since the beginning of the 1980s Dan-Air itself had been looking at introducing aircraft that were more advanced and had a greater seating capacitySeating capacitySeating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
than the Boeing 727-200 Advanced, the largest contemporary aircraft in the airline's fleet, to combat rising jet fuelJet fuelJet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification...
prices and to make the best use of Gatwick's increasingly scarce early morning peak time slots. This led to the evaluation of the Boeing 757Boeing 757The Boeing 757 is a mid-size, narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Passenger versions of the twinjet have a capacity of 186 to 289 persons and a maximum range of , depending on variant and cabin configuration...
and several other state-of-the-art, high-capacity narrow- and widebodied aircraft types. That evaluation process resulted in the introduction of two 336-seat ex-Hapag-Lloyd Airbus A300Airbus A300The Airbus A300 is a short- to medium-range widebody jet airliner. Launched in 1972 as the world's first twin-engined widebody, it was the first product of Airbus Industrie, a consortium of European aerospace companies, wholly owned today by EADS...
B4 series widebodied aircraft into Dan-Air's fleet. This in turn necessitated putting in place the maintenance infrastructure to support the operation of these new, larger aircraft at Gatwick. - Gatwick's increasingly tight slot situation from the second half of the 1980s made frequent ferry flights to/from Lasham and Manchester to maintain Dan-Air's large, Gatwick-based narrowbodied fleet less and less feasible as each movement accounted for by a non-revenue flight represented a lost commercial opportunity.
The opening of Dan-Air Engineering's third maintenance base resulted in an increase in the engineering unit's total staffing level to over 1,600.
Change of ownership
Dan-Air Engineering's sister airline Dan-Air's growing financial problems from the second half of 1990 against the backdrop of a severe recession in the UK and a looming warGulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
in the Gulf
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
led to a change in both organisations' parent company Davies and Newman's top management. This in turn resulted in a change in the airline's strategic
Strategy
Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...
direction with profound implications for the engineering unit's future.
The new management's decision to focus Dan-Air's future activities on the provision of fully fledged scheduled services on high-profile domestic and international Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an trunk routes from the airline's Gatwick base with a fleet of brand-new Boeing 737
Boeing 737
The Boeing 737 is a short- to medium-range, twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner. Originally developed as a shorter, lower-cost twin-engine airliner derived from Boeing's 707 and 727, the 737 has developed into a family of nine passenger models with a capacity of 85 to 215 passengers...
300/400 series and BAe 146
BAe 146
The British Aerospace 146 is a medium-sized commercial airliner formerly manufactured in the United Kingdom by British Aerospace, later part of BAE Systems. Production ran from 1983 until 2002. Manufacture of an improved version known as the Avro RJ began in 1992...
300 series/Avro
Avro
Avro was a British aircraft manufacturer, with numerous landmark designs such as the Avro 504 trainer in the First World War, the Avro Lancaster, one of the pre-eminent bombers of the Second World War, and the delta wing Avro Vulcan, a stalwart of the Cold War.-Early history:One of the world's...
RJ115 jets meant that Dan-Air Engineering's capacity exceeded its sister airline's maintenance requirements by 45%.
At the same time, Dan-Air Engineering was facing growing competition in the global third-party MRO market from rival specialist providers with far greater economies of scale
Economies of scale
Economies of scale, in microeconomics, refers to the cost advantages that an enterprise obtains due to expansion. There are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as the scale of output is increased. "Economies of scale" is a long run concept and refers to reductions in unit...
, considerably lower labour cost
Cost
In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost. In this...
s and much more powerful parent organisations in places such as China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
.
As a result, Davies and Newman was no longer in a position to fund the competing investment
Investment
Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...
requirements of both its airline and engineering subsidiaries from its own, limited financial resources. It therefore decided to focus all its resources on Dan-Air and to sell off Dan-Air Engineering to a major, specialist MRO provider with the expertise and resources to continue investing in it.
In the event, Davies and Newman sold Dan-Air Engineering to FLS Aerospace, a major specialist MRO provider in the UK and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
with bases at Stansted
London Stansted Airport
-Cargo:-Statistics:-Infrastructure:-Terminal and satellite buildings:Stansted is the newest passenger airport of all the main London airports. The terminal is an oblong glass building, and is separated in to three areas: Check-in concourse, arrivals and departures...
, Manchester and Dublin
Dublin Airport
Dublin Airport, , is operated by the Dublin Airport Authority. Located in Collinstown, in the Fingal part of County Dublin, 18.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2010, making it the busiest airport in the Republic of Ireland, followed by Cork and Shannon...
, for £27.5 million on February 28, 1991. The sale of Dan-Air Engineering to FLS Aerospace resulted in a reduction in employment at the remaining Davies and Newman group companies from 4,000 to 2,500, almost all of whom continued to be employed at Dan-Air.
Following Dan-Air Engineering's sale, Dan-Air awarded FLS Aerospace the contract for the maintenance of its fleet.
(FLS Aerospace's loss of the Dan-Air maintenance contract as a result of the airline's takeover by British Airways in 1992 led to the decommissioning and mothballing of the hangars it had acquired from Dan-Air Engineering at Gatwick and Lasham. The Gatwick hangar was subsequently brought back into service in the late-1990s following British Airways's decision to make the airport a major hub
Airline hub
An airline hub is an airport that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination. It is part of a hub and spoke model, where travelers moving between airports not served by direct flights change planes en route to their destinations...
. It was decommissioned once more as a consequence of British Airways's subsequent decision to de-hub Gatwick, following the adoption of a new corporate strategy aimed at restructuring the airline's loss-making operation at the airport in the aftermath of recording its first-ever full-year loss since privatisation in 2000. Most recently, on 1 August 2006, Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Atlantic Airways
Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited is a British airline owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Singapore Airlines...
took over this hangar to provide an in-house maintenance capability for its growing Boeing 747-400 fleet at Gatwick as well as to support sister airline Virgin Nigeria's daily Airbus A340
Airbus A340
The Airbus A340 is a long-range four-engine wide-body commercial passenger jet airliner. Developed by Airbus Industrie,A consortium of European aerospace companies, Airbus is now fully owned by EADS and since 2001 has been known as Airbus SAS. a consortium of European aerospace companies, which is...
operation from/to Lagos
Lagos
Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...
at the airport.
Meanwhile, FLS Aerospace itself was acquired by SR Technics, the former maintenance arm of defunct Swissair
Swissair
Swissair AG was the former national airline of Switzerland.It was formed from a merger between Balair and Ad Astra Aero , in 1931...
, in 2004. Towards the end of 2006, SR Technics in turn was jointly taken over by the governments of Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...
and Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
(through Mubadala
Mubadala Development Company
Mubadala Development Company PJSC was established in October 2002 as a Public Joint Stock Company and is a wholly owned investment vehicle of the Government of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates....
and Dubai Aerospace Enterprise
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise is a global aviation corporation. DAE was founded by the Dubai government in 2006 with a $15bn capital base. The company originally had six divisions - DAE Capital, DAE Services, DAE Manufacturing, DAE Airports, DAE Engineering and DAE University...
, respectively), who then incorporated it into their nascent MRO venture.
The former Dan-Air Engineering maintenance base at Lasham was acquired by ATC Lasham, a Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
MRO specialist, in 1995.)
Facts of interest
- Dan-Air Engineering restored one of the Douglas Dakotas operated by sister airline Dan-Air as the airline's first aircraft, applying the contemporary livery and aircraft registration (G-AMSU). (The aircraft, which was originally registered G-AMPP when in commercial airline service with Dan-AirScottish AirlinesScottish Airlines Limited was formed in 1946 as a subsidiary of Scottish Aviation Limited. The airline commenced worldwide passenger and cargo charter flights from bases at Prestwick and Stansted...
, was on display at Lasham from 1971 until 1991.)
- During the 1970s Dan-Air Engineering developed a comprehensive non-destructive testing (NDT) capability. (This assumed added significance following the loss of one of sister airline Dan-Air's Boeing 707 freighters during the second half of that decade due to metal fatigueMetal FatigueMetal Fatigue , is a futuristic science fiction, real-time strategy computer game developed by Zono Incorporated and published by Psygnosis and TalonSoft .-Plot:...
, leading to the separation of the aircraft's horizontal stabiliserStabilizer (aircraft)In aviation, a stabilizer provides stability when the aircraft is flying straight, and the airfoil of the horizontal stabilizer balances the forces acting on the aircraft....
in mid-air.)
- During the early-1980s Dan-Air Engineering's Manchester base designed and installed a then unique cargo door in one of sister airline Dan-Air's Hawker Siddeley 748 turbopropTurbopropA turboprop engine is a type of turbine engine which drives an aircraft propeller using a reduction gear.The gas turbine is designed specifically for this application, with almost all of its output being used to drive the propeller...
s that had specifically been acquired for this purpose. This enabled the aircraft — a series 2 HS 748 (registration G-BIUV) fitted with an 8 ft (2.4 m) by 8 ft (2.4 m) rear cargo door — to carry "outsize" cargoes, such as pipes and oil drilling equipment measuring up to 6 in (15.2 cm) in diameter and up to 40 ft (12.2 m) in length, which made it particularly suitable for oil industry support work.
- During the 1980s Dan-Air Engineering held the contract to maintain the Qatar Amiri FlightQatarQatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
's Boeing 727-200 Advanced VIPVery Important PersonA Very Important Person, or VIP is a person who is accorded special privileges due to his or her status or importance.Examples include celebrities, heads of state/heads of government, major employers, high rollers, politicians, high-level corporate officers, wealthy individuals, or any other...
aircraft fleet. (The flight deck crew flying these aircraft were seconded from sister airline Dan-Air.)
External links
- SR Technics website ( 2004 Our acquisition of FLS Industries' MRO activities in the United kingdom and Ireland ...)
- ATC Lasham website ( about us ...)
- Visit to Wings of Liberation Museum, Best, NL ( One can still faintly see traces of "DAN-AIR London" titles on the fuselage. )
- line up Aviation Personnel - Recruitment of Aviation Personnel ( Virgin opens new Gatwick hangar for A checks ... )