Sir Frederick Alfred Laker (born August 6, 1922), better known as Sir Freddie Laker is a legendary British airline owner. He was one of the first airline owners to introduce the so called No-frills airline system, one which has proven to be a very successful system worldwide. August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days remaining. ... 1922 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ...

Laker, originally from Kent, started working in aviation with the Short brothers. He was a member of the Air Transport Auxiliary team during the World War II years, from 1941 to 1946. In 1960, he joined British United Airways, where he was manager for five years. It was while with British United that Laker learned the ropes in the airline managing business. So, in 1966, he departed to form his own airline, Laker Airways, using second-hand airliners from BOAC. The livery was a mixture of black and red, with a bold LAKER logo on the tailplane. This article is about the English county of Kent. ... ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air. ... 1941 was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1966 was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ... Laker Airways was a British airline that flew from 1966 until becoming bankrupt on February 6, 1982. ... After technical problems with the Comet, BOAC resumed jet service with imported Boeing 707s. ...

Laker Airways were committed to offering air travel as economically as possible, with passengers being required to buy tickets on the day of travel, their meals being paid for separately. In 1973 the company submitted an application to the British Air Transport Licensing Board to launch its trans-Atlantic Skytrain service, at a price almost one-third that of the major competition. The application was not granted until 1977, after much legal wrangling (there were doubts as to Laker's economic viability, and allegations of adverse pressure from a cartel involving the major airlines, who had meanwhile lowered their prices to just above Laker's level). A cartel is a group of producers whose goal it is to fix prices, to limit supply and to limit competition. ...

Skytrain was extremely popular, and Laker was popular with the public, a forerunner of Richard Branson and one of Margaret Thatcher's golden boys of industry (along with Sir Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar). In 1978 Laker was knighted for services to the airline industry. His airline became one of the early buyers of the first Airbus airliners, the Airbus A300 and in 1981 had plans to expand into Europe. Sir Richard Branson during the announcement of the Virgin Express airline which would compete with Ryanair and EasyJet. ... Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (born July 30, 1940), is a British entrepreneur and inventor of, among other things, the worlds first pocket calculator, in 1962. ... Sir Alan Michael Sugar (born 24 March 1947) is a British businessman with an estimated fortune of £700 million. ... Airbus S.A.S. is a commercial aircraft manufacturer based in Toulouse, France. ... Lufthansa Airbus A300 The Airbus A300 is a short to medium range, wide-body family of aircraft manufactured by Airbus Industries between 1972 and the present. ...

Bankruptcy

In 1982 the company went bust, owing over £250 million. There were numerous reasons for this - Britain and the world were in recession, the other airlines were making a loss by competing with Laker, Laker Airways had expanded too quickly in the late 1970s, buying a large fleet of Douglas DC-10s at just the wrong time. Also, the DC-10's patchy safety record at that time (the mid-70s had seen a string of fatal crashes involving the aircraft) was scaring off potential customers and was yet another nail in the coffin for Skytrain. The fallout descended into litigation and confusion. Biman Bangladesh Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10 The McDonnell Douglas DC-10 is a three-engined long-range airliner, with two engines mounted on underwing pylons and a third engine at the base of the vertical stabilizer. ...

Laker was undaunted and almost immediately attempted to re-launch the airline on the back of a strong public following (a relief fund gathered over a million pounds, helped by endorsement from The Police, who had used Laker to tour America). It was not until the early 1990s that Laker, by now living in the Bahamas, got off the ground again, moving his operations base to Nassau, from where the airline still flies. For those of a certain age Sir Freddie Laker remains the acceptable face of capitalism, a big man who took on big business, burned brightly for a time, and failed gloriously, as all heroes eventually must. The Police was a three-piece British pop band which was strongly influenced by reggae. ... Nassau is the capital city of the Bahamas. ...

Laker is also famous for his famous quote to fellow airline entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Stelios Haji-Ioannou to "sue the bastards"; this being a reference to the bullish tactics of British Airways to try and force the no-frills upstarts out of business. Stelios Haji-Ioannou (Greek Στέλιος Χατζηιωάννου, born February 14, 1967, in Athens, Greece) is a Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur. ... British Airways is the largest airline of the United Kingdom. ...

As a tribute to Laker Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways later named one of its Boeing 747s The Spirit of Sir Freddie. Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. ... The Boeing 747, which is also known as the jumbo jet, is the largest passenger airliner in service. ...

External Link:

www.lakerairways.co.uk - A website dedicated to Laker Airways, a source of information and a contact point for ex-crew members.