Transavia

Transavia

IATA ICAO Callsign HV TRA TRANSAVIA
Founded	1965
Commenced operations	17 November 1966
Operating bases	Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Munich Airport Eindhoven Airport Rotterdam The Hague Airport
Focus cities	Groningen Airport Eelde
Fleet size	71
Destinations	88
Parent company	KLM
Headquarters	Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands
Website	transavia.com

Transavia Airlines C.V., trading as Transavia and formerly branded as transavia.com, is a Dutch low-cost airline and a wholly owned subsidiary of KLM and therefore part of the Air France-KLM group. Its main base is Amsterdam Airport Schiphol with further bases at Rotterdam The Hague Airport, Munich Airport and Eindhoven Airport. Transavia additionally maintains Transavia France as its French subsidiary.

History

Early years

Transavia Airbus A300 in 1976

The first brainstorming sessions about starting a second charter company in the Netherlands, after Martinair, started in spring 1966, when the American Chalmers Goodlin met with captain Pete Holmes. "Slick" Goodlin had recently bought the dormant small company Transavia Limburg, based in Maastricht, which had 3 DC-6's available. The Dutch Government needed to be approached in order to obtain an operating license for the airline, both in order to be allowed to operate out of Amsterdam Airport, and for these DC6s.

At that stage John Block, a former member of the Martinair Holland management, was willing to take that on. He succeeded, the license was issued on 14 November 1966 and 2 days later on 16 November 1966 the first (maiden) commercial flight, flown by Captain Pete Holmes – Amsterdam/Naples/Amsterdam – on board were the Dutch Ballet Orchestra and the Dutch Dance Theatre. This was the first flight with the new name of Transavia Holland.

The company found offices at the old Schiphol Airport, Hangar 7 and the fledgling's financier Slick Goodlin appointed the 3-pronged Management: Commercial Director J.N. Block, Director Operations H.G. Holmes and Technical Director Kees de Blok. Some of the first employees were Pilots John Schurman (Canadian), Hans Steinbacher & Pim Sierks (Dutch), Chief Stewardess Willy Holmes-Spoelder and her stewardesses: Senior Stewardess Wil Dammers and six carefully selected and trained young women.

Development since the 1980s

Transavia Boeing 757-200 in 2001

Building up the airline from scratch, ten years later Transavia had a marketshare of 45% of the Dutch holiday market and became the main competitor of Martinair. In 1986, the Transavia Holland brand was changed into Transavia Airlines. It was the first airline to take advantage of the first open skies agreement signed between the UK and Dutch governments. Transavia started operating its first scheduled service on the Amsterdam to London Gatwick route on 26 October 1986.

During 1991, the airline's major shareholder, Nedlloyd, sold its 80% holding to KLM. In 1998, Transavia was the first foreign airline to operate domestic services in Greece following a change in Greek aviation law. In June 2003, KLM acquired the remaining 20% of Transavia, making it 100% KLM owned. The subsequent merger of Air France and KLM made Transavia a wholly owned subsidiary of Air France-KLM.

In the early 2000s (decade), Transavia was primarily a charter airline with a low-cost airline subsidiary called Basiq Air. To strengthen its brand image, the two were combined under the transavia.com name on 1 January 2005.

Transavia has a French unit, Transavia France, based at Paris-Orly, which operates twenty 737-800s. A Danish unit, Transavia Denmark, based at Copenhagen was operated until the end of April 2011, but was shut down after failing to meet expectations.

There was a strike by Air France pilots in September 2014 in protest against the Air France-KLM group's increasing development of Transavia whose pilots were being paid less than those of Air France.^[1]

By early 2015, Transavia received a new corporate design dropping the ".com" from its public appearance as well as changing its primary colors from white/green/blue to white/green.^[2] The airline is now to be positioned as Air France-KLM's low-cost brand for the Netherlands and France.^[3]

Corporate affairs

Ownership and structure

Transavia Airlines C.V. is 100% owned by KLM, which in turn is owned by Air France–KLM; however Transavia is run as an independent operation. It holds a 40% interest in the French airline Transavia France S.A.S (the remaining 60% is owned by Air France S.A.), which operates in the French market. Transavia France also operates under the brand name of transavia, with an identical business model, website and image.^[4]

Business trends

Former logo during the Transavia Airlines branding

Former logo during the transavia.com branding

The financials for both parts of the Transavia brand (Transavia Netherlands and Transavia France) are fully incorporated in the published annual accounts of their ultimate parent, Air France-KLM. Recent trends reported for the Transavia brand are (figures for years ending 31 December):

Head office

The TransPort Building houses the head offices of Transavia and Martinair

Transavia has its head office in the TransPort Building, Schiphol East,^[8] on the grounds of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands.^[9] Transavia moved into the new building on 3 May 2010 with about 400 employees.^[10] Previously the head office was in the Building Triport III at Schiphol Airport.^[11][12][13]

Service concept

Transavia offers the "Selection on Board" buy on board service offering food and drinks for purchase.^[14] Commencing 5 April 2011, Transavia introduced fees for hold luggage and changed the rules for hand luggage, with the maximum allowable weight for hand luggage increased from 5 kg to 10 kg.^[15]

Destinations

Fleet

Current fleet

Transavia Boeing 737-800
wearing the current livery

Transavia Boeing 737–700
wearing the former livery

The Transavia fleet (including Transavia France) consists of the following aircraft (as of August 2016).^[16] All aircraft are fitted with performance-enhancing winglets.^[17]

Historical fleet

Over the years, Transavia has operated the following aircraft types in its mainline fleet:^[18]

Additional aircraft types were part of the fleet in small numbers and only for short-term periods: Airbus A300 (1976–77), Airbus A310 (1998–99), Boeing 737–400 (1997), Boeing 757–300 (2003) and BAe 146–200 (1997).^[18]

Incidents and accidents

To date no fatalities or complete loss of aircraft occurred related to Transavia flights. In 1997 two incidents occurred with substantial damage to the aircraft:

• On 8 February 1997, Transavia Airlines Flight 484, a Boeing 737–300 flying from Salzburg to Amsterdam, was damaged en route. The push/pull rod of the elevator broke off, damaging the Boeing 737's rudder and an emergency landing was made at Nuremberg Airport. There were no fatalities, but the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive after this and a similar incident.^[20]
• On 24 December 1997, Transavia Airlines Flight 462, a Boeing 757–200 flying from Gran Canaria to Amsterdam was seriously damaged during landing. The aircraft landed in strong, gusty winds and touched down hard with its right maingear first. On touchdown the nosegear broke out of the doghouse. After gliding over the runway for approximately 3 km, it came to rest in the grass beside the runway. Serious damage was inflicted on some electronic systems and control-cables. The plane evacuated successfully and no fatalities occurred.^[21] The aircraft returned to service after repairs.
• In September 2012, a Transavia pilot was locked outside the cockpit after his co-pilot had fallen asleep. Eventually the crew managed to wake up the pilot in the cockpit.^[22]

See also

• Transavia Denmark
• Transavia France

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Transavia.

• Official website