Debonair (airline)

Debonair was founded by Franco Mancassola who had previously worked for Continental Airlines, and founded Discovery Airways in Hawaii.^[4] Indeed the company was established in August 1995 as Valuair Europe but changed to Debonair on 20 December of the same year^[5].

Debonair's first flights took off on June 19, with weekday daily flights to Munich, Mönchengladbach and Barcelona from London Luton Airport.^[6] From July, Debonair also added a Madrid route alongside Newcastle and Copenhagen, and later in November a direct London Luton to Rome flight.^[7][8]

It floated shares on the Easdaq in September 1997 and raised $41.9m.^[9] By mid-1998, the airline was on a heavy cost-cutting strategy which was beginning to slow the losses compared with the year prior.^[10] Although at the same time, Debonair sought to introduce special services for its frequent flyer programme including fast track boarding and inclusive meals onboard and on some routes its ABC - Affordable Business Class product.^[11][12] Debonair appealed to business travellers, who made up 58 percent of its passengers by 1998.^[13] In late 1998, Debonair entered a working relationship with Lufthansa, leasing five aircraft for their CityLine operations from Munich. Whilst the aircraft were in Lufthansa colours, the flights were in the hands of Debonair staff.^[14] Debonair also entered a similar agreement with Swissair who were launching their Express brand to operate a BAe 146 on their behalf from Zurich to Venice and Bologna^[15].

Debonair also maintained a codeshare agreement with AB Airlines, which resulted in the lease of a Boeing 737-300 from January 1999 remaining in service until Debonair's operations ended.^[16]

On 1 October 1999 the airline's shares were suspended, and the following day the operations of Debonair were grounded following a court ruling to appoint Deloitte as administrators.^{[17][18][19][20]} At the time of closure, the airline had just embarked on a new national advertising campaign, which was pulled from the media at the last minute. However, some advertising made it onto London Underground trains.^[21] Following the closure of Debonair, founder Mancassola was critical of British Airways subsidiary Go as a cause for the airlines demise.^[22]

At the time of closure, the fleet consisted of the following aircraft^[23]:

Previous fleet

More information Aircraft, Total ...

Aircraft	Total	Introduced	Retired	Remarks
Boeing 737-300	2	1998	1999	Leased from AB Airlines
BAC 1-11	1	1999	1999	Leased from European Aviation
Fokker 50	1	1998	1999	Leased from Denim Air
BAE 146-100	1	1997	1997	Leased from Flightline

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