History of Maersk Air

The A. P. Moller-Maersk Group's first invested in aviation in 1937, when it bought a stake in Danish Air Lines, Denmark's contemporary flag carrier.

Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) was the flag carrier and held the sole right to conduct international scheduled services.

[3] Bjarne Hansen, who was administratively responsible for the corporate jet, made several propositions for the Maersk Group to establish an airline.

[5] The airline therefore aimed at ad-hoc charter with aircraft in the 50-seat market, and perhaps securing the rights to fly regional scheduled flights to smaller domestic airports.

At the time Falck Air operated a fleet of two de Havilland Herons and two Hawker Siddeley HS 748 aircraft and a hangar at Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup.

It gradually built up a nationwide network of travel agency outlets, in Ålborg, Århus, Copenhagen, Esbjerg, Herning, Horsens, Odense and Skive.

Unisol—Denmark's third largest inclusive tours travel agency—was placed under the industrial department in Maersk, while the airline reported directly to the executive administration.

And although the scheme did rise passenger numbers, it failed to improve Maersk Air's financial performance in the domestic market.

Inspired form the importance of crucial timing of purchase and sale of ships, Maersk Air made several advantages deals.

The first Danish non-SAS international concession was in 1981 granted to Air Business, who operated an Embraer Bandeirante from Esbjerg via Thistedt to Stavanger Airport, Sola in Norway from 1983.

[34] Changes in European Community rules in 1984 allowed any carrier to operate intra-European routes, granted that they connected two regional airports.

[39] Airline traffic fell in 1991 after the break-out of the Gulf War and Maersk Air failed to reach its targets for the international services.

At the time UPS was looking for a European partner to haul intra-European flights out of Cologne Bonn Airport, using a fleet of Boeing 727s.

In response, Maersk Air commenced services the following year out of SAS' stronghold at Copenhagen Airport to Milan, Geneva and Stockholm.

[70] With its eight daily round trips, Maersk Air only captured ten percent of the market on the Copenhagen–Stockholm route, losing money on it.

[72] With the 14 June 1998 opening of the Great Belt Fixed Link, car, coach and rail transport became faster between Jutland and Funen on the one hand, and Zealand on the other.

[61] For instance the travel time by train from Aarhus to Copenhagen fell from four to three hours, making domestic flights considerably less competitive.

[79] One reason for SAS' move was that Norway's Braathens had recently bought Transwede and that negotiations had commenced with the aim of a merger or close cooperation with Maersk.

[78] Maersk Air announced in November 1998 that it would close the two routes it was losing money on, the Copenhagen services to Vojens and Stockholm.

[81] Niels Sundberg, CEO of Sun-Air, wrote an official complaint to the EU Commission, arguing that the deal struck between SAS and Maersk had a closer cooperation than the competition regulations allowed.

Eventually the European Commissioner for Competition, Mario Monti, approved a dawn raid on SAS and Maersk,[83] which took place on 15 June 2000.

[84] Maersk Air chose to cooperate with the Commission and surrendered a series of private papers not found in the raid, in a hope that this would lower a potential fine.

[92] The company experienced high turnover amongst cabin crew, due to lower wages and longer working hours that at SAS.

To avoid the situation from deteriorating, Maersk Air was tightly integrated into the owner corporation and had to make detailed monthly reports.

He also proposed competing head on with SAS, as he believed that Maersk Air with the new strategy could operate with lower costs than the consortium.

The airline entered a codesharing agreement with Kenya Airways, allowing passengers to fly from Billund via Amsterdam to Nairobi and onwards to 26 African destinations.

[107] The aircraft received a new seating plan, whereby four different classes were introduced, named "small", "medium", "large" and "x-large", with pitches ranging from 70 to 90 centimeters (28 to 35 in) and from six to four abreast.

[109] The airline adopted the slogan "fly as you like" and focused its route production on typical holiday destinations and cheap fares.

[113] The leasing agreements proved unfavorable and Maersk Aircraft needed an additional DKK 300 million in share capital in 2005.

[120] The main competitors, SAS, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Transavia Denmark, all rushed to establish services on the terminated routes.