In 1947, former
Royal Air Force pilot Gerald "Gerry" Freeman founded Transair Ltd as an air taxi operator at Croydon Airport (London's main airport pre-war). Following a difficult start,
in Britain's poor economic conditions, the airline became very profitable by specialising in distributing newspapers. By 1952, the number of annual newspaper delivery flights using
Avro Ansons exceeded 3,000. Transair's newspaper flights also established industry performance standards. at
Manchester (Ringway) Airport in 1953. In 1953, Transair began flying British holidaymakers to sunnier climes in the
Mediterranean following the signing of its first IT charter contract with
Vladimir Raitz's
Horizon Holidays. By that time, the airline's fleet was ten
Douglas DC-3 Dakota piston
airliners. Although all of these were second-hand, they were immaculately maintained. By the time Transair joined Airwork, its operations encompassed the Viscount trooping contract between the United Kingdom and the Western Mediterranean, intensive mail and freight services under long-term charter contracts, IT flights,
ad hoc night charters and a seasonal London—
Jersey scheduled service. Transair's Viscount 804 G-AOXU was the first aircraft of its type to be based at the airport. This was also the time the process of merging the Airwork-controlled airlines with Hunting-Clan to form BUA started. During 1959, Transair recorded a profit of £400,000, as a result of which it became Airwork's most profitable airline subsidiary. Freeman's rigid attention to detail and the good systems he had put in place made Transair the most efficient Airwork airline. This in turn made Transair's financial performance superior to other Airwork airlines. In 1959 Airwork also took over
Air Charter,
Freddie Laker's first airline venture. Following Airwork's takeover of Air Charter, the Airwork board put Freeman in charge of the entire group's UK and European short-haul operations. As part of this deal, Transair took over the management of all the group's UK regional services, leaving Laker to concentrate on the group's long-haul trooping flights and other long-distance charter services. By the time Airwork merged with Hunting-Clan to form BUA in July 1960, the former's air transport subsidiaries already included Airwork Helicopters, Air Charter,
Bristow Helicopters,
Channel Air Bridge, Transair and
Morton Air Services. ==Fleet ==