Transavia

This article is about the Dutch airline. For the Australian aircraft manufacturer, see Transavia Corporation.
Not to be confused with TransAsia Airways.
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):

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Turnover ("Passenger Revenues") (€m) 889 984 1,056 1,100
Operating profit/loss (€m) 0 −23 −36 −35
Number of employees (at year end) 2,050 n/a 2,400
Number of passengers (m) 8.9 9.9 10.8
Passenger load factor (%) 88.6 90.1 89.8 89.9
Number of aircraft (Transavia) 30 31 30 31 32
Number of aircraft (Transavia France) 8 8 11 14 21
Number of aircraft (total) (at year end) 38 39 41 45 53
Notes/sources [5] [6] [3][6] [3] [7]

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]

Transavia fleet
Aircraft In Service Orders Passengers Notes
Boeing 737-700 8 — 149
Boeing 737-800 63 11 183
189		 9 leased from Gol Transportes Aéreos
Total 71 11

Historical fleet

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

Transavia historical fleet
Aircraft Introduced Retired
Sud Aviation Caravelle[19] 1969 1976
Boeing 737–200 1974 1995
Boeing 737–300 1986 2002
Boeing 757–200 1992 2004
Boeing 737–700 2001
Boeing 737–800 1998

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:

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Air France strike to continue another week". The Local: France. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  2. ↑ Dorien Vrieling (10 March 2015). "[Designpanel] Rebranding Transavia". MarketingTribune.
  3. 1 2 3 "Annual Financial Report 2014" (PDF). Air France-KLM. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "Organization". Transavia. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  5. ↑ "Financial Year 2011 - press release" (PDF). Air France-KLM. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  6. 1 2 "Registration Document 2013 including the annual financial report" (PDF). Air France-KLM. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  7. ↑ "Registration Document 2015 including the annual financial report" (PDF). Air France-KLM. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  8. ↑ "New visiting address Martinair Headquarters." Martinair. Retrieved on 16 February 2011. "Martinair’s head office will relocate to the new TransPort building at Schiphol East on Friday, June 4, 2010." and "Visiting address Martinair Holland N.V. Piet Guilonardweg 17 1117 EE Schiphol"
  9. ↑ "Visiting address and directions." Transavia.com. Retrieved on 7 February 2011. "Piet Guilonardweg 15: TransPort Building 1117 EE Schiphol Airport PO Box 7777, 1118 ZM Schiphol Airport (NL)."
  10. ↑ "Proud of our new energy-saving head office." Public Report 2009/2010. Transavia.com. 8 (8/13). Retrieved on 16 February 2011.
  11. ↑ "STCC TRANSAVIA." TUIfly. Retrieved on 16 February 2011. "transavia.com Westelijke Randweg 3, building Triport III 1118 CR Schiphol Airport"
  12. ↑ "General Conditions of Passage." Transavia.com. 28/28 Retrieved on 16 February 2011. "Address for visitors: transavia.com Westelijke Randweg 3, building Triport III 1118 CR Schiphol Airport"
  13. ↑ "Annual Report 2004/2005." Transavia.com. 28/28. Retrieved on 16 February 2011. "transavia.com Westelijke Randweg 3 P.O. Box 7777 1118 ZM Schiphol Centrum The Netherlands"
  14. ↑ "Selection on board." transavia.com. Retrieved on 16 February 2011.
  15. ↑ "Why is transavia.com changing its luggage policy?" (PDF). Transavia.com. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
  16. ↑ "Global Airline Guide 2016 (Part One)". Airliner World (October 2016): 22.
  17. ↑ "Boeing". mediaroom.com.
  18. 1 2 "Transavia Airlines Fleet - Airfleets aviation". airfleets.net.
  19. ↑ http://www.rzjets.net/aircraft/?parentid=1302&typeid=1&frstatus=3
  20. ↑ Incident details from Aviation Safety.net website, visited June 22, 2008
  21. ↑ Incident details from Aviation Safety.net website, visited June 22, 2008
  22. ↑ "Pilot locked out of cockpit while co-pilot slept". Pilot Career News.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Transavia.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.