Conair of Scandinavia

Conair of Scandinavia A/S was a Danish charter airline based at Copenhagen Airport. It merged with Scanair to establish Premiair in 1994.

History


Conair was founded by the Scandinavian charter pioneer Simon Spies in 1965. The fleet was from scratch old Douglas DC-7s, which were taken over from Flying Enterprise. Around 1970, Conair got in to the "jet age", and bought second-hand Boeing 720Bs from Eastern Air Lines instead. In autumn of 1987, two Conair Boeing 720s had their nose gear cracked during otherwise normal landings in Salzburg, Austria and Rome, Italy. The fleet was already set to be renewed to second-hand Airbus A300B4s. But after the two incidents the changing of the fleet became a very urgent issue.

After the death of Simon Spies, his rather new wife and former secretary Janni Spies got ahead of the whole Spies corporation (where the traveling agency Spies rejser was included) and she employed her brother, a former carpenter, as general manager.

They soon ordered six new Airbus A320s at the same time as the Gulf War occurred. In the aftermath of the war, a sudden drop in numbers of flight passenger worldwide was a factor (which among other things) led to the bankruptcy of Pan Am. Conair and the Spies traveling agency were saved (almost as a Danish national treasure due to the huge popularity for the former "charter-king", the deceased Simon Spies) by banks, and Janni Spies and her staff were replaced. On 1 January 1994, Conair merged with a Swedish charter airline Scanair, forming a new carrier, Premiair. Today, the airline still operates under the new name Sunclass Airlines, still having its base at Copenhagen Airport.

Operations
Conair primarily flew tourists from the Spies traveling agency, but also served several other travel agencies. The vast majority of flights had their destinations in the Mediterranean area but also at Canary Islands, Gambia, London, Rome and Paris. Beside their main base at Copenhagen, flights also departed from Billund Airport and Stockholm Arlanda Airport.

Fleet
Over the years, Conair of Scandinavian operated the following aircraft: