D & D AVIATION: 470 North 2400 W., Salt Lake City, Utah 84116, United States; Phone (801) 532-0990; Fax (801) 532-0991; Year Founded 1993. D & D is established at Salt Lake City in 1993 to provide executive and small group passenger charters. By 2000, the company employs four pilots and operates from the Utah airfield as well as from Scottsdale, Arizona.
One each Learjet 24D, Learjet-25D, and Learjet-35A, plus a Beech King Air 90, are operated from Salt Lake City while two Learjet 35As are flown from Scottsdale.
D & S AVIATION: Van Nuys Airport, 16700 Roscow Blvd., Van Nuys, California 91406, United States; Phone (818) 831-3002; Fax (818) 8317002; Http://www. choicemall. com/dsaviation; Year Founded 1993.
D & S is set up at Van Nuys, California, in 1993 by David and Suzanne Salzman to offer professional pilot training. Within a year, with Suzanne serving as general manager, the company begins Cessna 172 Skyhawk scenic tours of Los Angeles, Catalina, Malibu, and Santa Barbara. The company also runs air taxi flights between those destinations and to San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, Mojave/Lancaster, Ventura, Orange County, San Diego, Palm Springs, and San Bernardino/Riverside.
DAALLO AIRLINES, S. A. (AIRLINE OF THE HORN OF AFRICA): P. O. Box 21297, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Phone 971 (4) 733808; Fax 971 (4) 734464; Http://www. daallo. com; Code D3; Year Founded 1991. Supposedly owned by a Somali family, Dubai-based Daallo Airlines is established at Dijbouti in January 1991 to offer regional nonscheduled services into war-torn Somalia. Several Cessna 208 Caravan Is are acquired and allow operations to commence on March 20 with a charter to Hargeisa. Despite the intervention of the UN, a dire need to meet air transportation requirements in the region persists, particularly where land communications between different points has become difficult and dangerous. Daallo Airlines is able to quickly reach most of the regions of Somalia and serve this transportation requirement.
Over the next nine years, additional routes are extended to a variety of Mideast points and the Cessnas are replaced with aircraft from Russia and the Czech Republic.
By the end of the decade, the airline operates four weekly roundtrips from Dubai and Sharjah to Djibouti and Somalia. It also provides direct air services from the Somali towns of Berbera, Bosasso, Borama, Burao, Erigavo, and Mogadishu. It also provides two weekly return services from Jeddah to Mogadishu.
An interline agreement has been negotiated with Saudi Arabian Airlines and negotiations are undertake for similar pacts with Oman Air and Qata Airways.
In 2000, Managing Director Mohamed Yassin employs a workforce of 60. The fleet includes 2 Antonov An-24RVs, 1 Let L-410UVPs, and 2 Tupolev Tu-154M. An Ilyushin Il-18, 2 An-24RVs, and 2 L-410UVPs employed earlier have been withdrawn. Plans are under active consideration for an expansion of services to Nairobi, Kampala, Kinshasa, and Kigali.
DAC AIR, CLUJ: 2-4 Ministerului Street, Bucharest, Romania; Phone 40 (1) 223-2575; Fax 40 (1) 223-0844; Http://www. dntcj. ro/ dacair; Code 6P; Year Founded 1996. Romanian businessman George C. Paunescu establishes this new entrant at Bucharest during the last week of January 1996 to offer regional and domestic scheduled passenger services. A 15% stake, in the form of assets rather than equity, is taken by TAROM Romanian Airlines (Transporturile Aeriene Ro-mane, S. A.). Mr. Paunescu takes the post of managing director/CEO and places a $140-million order for 4 de Havilland Canada DHC-8-311s and 4 Canadair CRJ200 Regional Jets. In addition, four options are taken on each type, along with four conditional orders. The overall value will, if implemented, reach $425 million.
Two Dash-8-311s are turned over to the start-up in May and, upon their arrival, allow the company, while awaiting its owned aircraft, to inaugurate scheduled replacement services for TAROM to 12 domestic destinations.
Ground handling, passenger facilities, and reservations and ticketing are handled by TAROM as part of its equity agreement.
The first owned DHC-8-311 is turned over to the company in Canada in mid-July and the premier CRJ200 is delivered in September; both begin flying to cities in Central Europe and along the Black Sea Basin. Three more DHC-8-311s arrive before the end of the year.
The fleet in 1997 includes 4 leased DHC-8-311s and 4 CRJ200s. On occasion, several Antonov An-24s are leased from TAROM. During the summer, code-sharing flights are launched with MALEV Hungarian Airlines.
Flights continue in 1998-2000. In those years, the route network from Bucharest grows to include stops at Timisoara, Budapest, Venice, and Munich.
DAGESTAN AIRLINES (MAKHACHKALA AIR ENTERPRISE-DAG DAGESTAN AIRLINES): Makhachkala Airport, Makhachkala, Dagestan, 367016, Russia; Phone 7 (87222) 73 701; Code YUH; Year Founded 1993. This small air company is reformed from the Makhachkala division of the old Aeroflot Soviet Airlines. Provided with a fleet of 6 Antonov An-24s and 3 Tupolev Tu-154Ms, the company begins regularly scheduled flights linking its base in the Russian Caucasus, on the Caspian Sea adjacent to Azerbaijan, with Kazan and Surgut. Little is known concerning the actual operations of this company. It has been reported that 1.5 million enplanements were recorded in 1997.
On November 12, 2000, a Tu-154M with 10 crew and 48 passengers aboard is en route from Makhachkala to Moscow headed to the Russian capital to support the Dagestan soccer team in an upcoming match. An armed gunman seizes the plane and orders it to land at Baku, Azerbaijan, for refueling. On the ground, negotiations are started with local officials while a hostage negotiating team is being sent by air from Moscow.
Before the Moscow negotiating team can arrive, the aircraft, not yet refueled, takes off for a new destination—Israel. At this point, the situation begins to take on international overtones, as the attention of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is flying to the U. S. for Palestine talks, are drawn to the unfolding drama. Conversations monitored between the pilot and the control tower at Ben-Gurion Airport at Tel Aviv reveal that the aircraft has only enough fuel for a short flight.
Initially, Israeli officials are concerned that the plane has been hijacked by Islamic militants; however, when it becomes clear that the pirate is a young Russian, the Tupolev is cleared to land at the Uvda military base in the southern Negev desert. There, the young extremist releases his hostages and surrenders to Israeli officials. While the Dagestan Airlines aircraft is detained, its crew and passengers are allowed to return to Moscow shortly thereafter on another plane chartered for them. That evening, the hijacker is flown to Moscow aboard a Russian government aircraft, his subsequent fate unknown.
World History
