Dan-Air was one of the few British operators of the Boeing 727, using them to modernise its fleet and its image in the early 1970s. Bob O’Brien remembers the airline’s trijet years
Dan-Air was a British operator formed in March 1953 and registered as an airline on May 21 with working capital of £5,000. The business was a subsidiary of Davies and Newman Ltd, a London firm of shipping brokers that was established in 1922. The Dan-Air board of directors consisted of Fred Newman MC CBE, John Wingett Davies and E O Wallis, while the post of chief pilot was given to Capt F R Garside. The name Dan-Air was a contraction of Davies and Newman, and the fledgeling company took over a Douglas DC-3/C-47B Dakota, G-AMSU, owned by Meredith Air Transport. Davies and Newman had previously acted as brokers for Meredith, but when the company ran into financial difficulties, as did many independent airlines at the time, the aircraft’s operating certificate was taken over by Dan-Air.
