Maersk Air

If you go through old photos from Copenhagen-Kastrup or Billund, you often discover a white star on a light blue background on the tail. It belongs to Maersk Air – the airline of the big Danish shipping line A. P. Møller-Mærsk. For 36 years it flew under this star, first with Fokker turboprops, later almost exclusively with Boeing 737s. Here you learn where Maersk Air came from, which aircraft it used, why it disappeared in 2005 and how to correctly classify historical shots.

Maersk Air at a glance

Maersk Air was a historical Danish airline that belonged to the A. P. Møller-Mærsk Group from 1969 to 2005 – a conglomerate most people know mainly from container ships. Its entry into aviation began in 1969 with the purchase of Falck Air. On January 1, 1970, this became the company Maersk Air I/S. The airline was headquartered in Dragør, right at Copenhagen Airport.

Over the years Maersk Air was many things at once: a domestic airline for the Danish regional airports, a charter carrier for holiday trips to the Mediterranean, a scheduled airline in Europe and a helicopter operator for oil production in the North Sea. For a long time it was the most important Danish alternative to SAS – and in the end its partner, which earned it one of the best-known antitrust fines in European aviation.

In 2005 the group parted with the passenger airline. In September of the same year, Maersk Air merged into Sterling Airlines. At that point it flew 18 aircraft to 33 destinations.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code DM: appeared in Maersk Air’s flight numbers.
• ICAO code DAN: shows up in historical schedule data and radio recordings.
• Callsign MAERSKAIR: this is how the crews checked in on the radio.
• Registration OY-: The fleet was registered in Denmark. The guide Finding out an aircraft’s age explains how to read an aircraft’s year of manufacture and history from its registration.

Note one exception with old documents: the British subsidiary Maersk Air UK flew out of Birmingham as a franchise partner of British Airways – with BA flight numbers, BA livery and British G- registrations. Such a flight has nothing to do with the code DM.

From shipping-line offshoot to Boeing airline: the history

The beginnings, 1969 to 1975

The foundation was laid by the takeover of Falck Air in February 1969. For domestic traffic, Maersk Air initially relied on the turboprop Fokker F27 Friendship, with the first aircraft arriving in December 1969. Early routes included connections from Copenhagen to Odense and to Stauning in western Jutland. Two de Havilland Herons from Falck Air’s fleet flew briefly, and from 1970 Hawker Siddeley HS 748s joined.

The start was anything but smooth: at the end of December 1969, just over two weeks after the first delivery, an F27 on a training flight on Bornholm ran off the runway and ended up in the Baltic Sea. Everyone on board survived. From 1971, Maersk Air took part, together with SAS and Cimber Air, in the Danair consortium, which organized parts of Danish domestic traffic until 1995.

Charter, the Boeing 720 and the road to the 737

In the 1970s, Maersk Air entered the holiday business and bought travel agencies. For the charter flights, used Boeing 720Bs, which had previously flown with Northwest Airlines, joined the fleet from 1973. From 1976 the Boeing 737-200 followed in the Advanced version, and by the end of 1981 it had completely replaced the four-engine 720s. That began the close relationship with the 737 that accompanied Maersk Air to the end.

In parallel, the group built up a helicopter division. From the mid-1970s, Bell 212s, later also Super Pumas and Dauphins, flew personnel to the oil platforms in the North Sea – mainly out of Esbjerg.

The 1980s: Billund and Europe

In the early 1980s, Maersk Air had to cut costs. Under company chief Bjarne Hansen, the workforce fell from around 720 to about 480 employees. At the same time the airline looked for new markets – and found them in Jutland. Billund Airport was centrally located, with well over a million people in its catchment area. From 1981, Maersk Air launched international routes from there.

New international destinations included London Southend (1984) and Cologne/Bonn (1988). From Billund, Amsterdam, Brussels, London Gatwick, Stockholm and, in 1993, Frankfurt were added later, among others. For regional routes, the four-engine de Havilland Canada Dash 7 flew from 1981 to 1989, and from 1988 the Fokker 50. In 1985 the first Boeing 737-300 arrived – the beginning of the Classic generation at Maersk Air.

The 1990s: expansion with subsidiaries

In the 1990s, Maersk Air was broadly positioned. The 737-200 left the fleet in 1990, replaced by the shorter Boeing 737-500, which stayed until 2005. From 1993 to 1996, Boeing 737-400s also flew. Several stakes and subsidiaries were added:

• Maersk Air UK (1993–2003): British Airways franchise airline based at Birmingham Airport. In 2003 management took over the company, and it then continued flying as Duo Airways.
• Star Air (founded 1987, under the Maersk Air umbrella from 1993): cargo company that flew Boeing 727s and later 757s for UPS out of Cologne/Bonn. You can find more on today’s company at Star Air.
• Estonian Air (1996–2003): Maersk Air held 49 percent of Estonian Air and sold the stake to SAS in 2003.

In 1998, Maersk Air became the European launch customer of the Boeing 737-700 from the Next Generation family. In the same year, Bombardier CRJ200s joined the fleet for thinner routes.

The fleet: from the F27 to the 737-700

Maersk Air’s fleet was a varied mix over the years, but from the end of the 1970s the Boeing 737 formed the backbone. These types shaped the airline (periods per company history, rounded to years):

Type	Period at Maersk Air	Use	Spotter note
Fokker F27 Friendship	1969–1996	Domestic and regional traffic	High-wing aircraft with two turboprops
Hawker Siddeley HS 748	1970–1981	Regional traffic	Low-wing turboprop, British design
Boeing 720B	1973–1981	Charter	Four engines, resembles the Boeing 707
Boeing 737-200 Advanced	1976–1990	Charter and scheduled	Slim JT8D engines under the wing
de Havilland Canada Dash 7	1981–1989	Regional traffic	Four turboprops, T-tail
Boeing 737-300	1985–1998	Europe	Flattened CFM engine nacelles
Fokker 50	1988–2000	Regional traffic	Successor to the F27, six-blade propellers
Boeing 737-500	1990–2005	Europe	Shortest Classic version
Boeing 737-400	1993–1996	Europe and charter	Stretched Classic version
Boeing 737-700	1998–2005	Europe	Next Generation, European launch customer
Bombardier CRJ200	1998–2004	Thinner routes	Regional jet with rear-mounted engines

In addition there were business aircraft for the group, such as the Hawker Siddeley HS 125 and later the Bombardier Challenger 604, as well as the helicopters of the offshore division. For most spotters, though, the 737 is what counts: if you compare Maersk Air photos from different decades, you see practically the whole development of the series from the Original to the Next Generation. The guide Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart shows how to tell the generations apart in a photo.

How to recognize Maersk Air

The most important identifying feature is the white seven-pointed star on a light blue background – the shipping line’s symbol, which can also be seen on every Maersk container ship. It dates from 1886 and goes back to the first steamship of the founding family. At Maersk Air, the star sat on the tail, combined with the typical light Maersk blue.

From about 2003, the aircraft received a new livery in white and dark blue, replacing the old light blue. This version was only seen for around two years, so photos of it are correspondingly rarer. The advertising slogan of the late years was “fly as you like”.

The antitrust case with SAS

In the late 1990s, Maersk Air sought closeness to its big competitor. In 1998, the airline and SAS agreed on a cooperation that took effect in March 1999. Maersk Air took over, among other things, SAS’s EuroBonus frequent flyer program. Officially it was about codeshares and joint routes – in reality both sides had also divided up markets. Maersk Air withdrew, for example, from the routes Copenhagen–Stockholm and Copenhagen–Geneva; in return, both sides refrained from competing with each other.

In June 2000, investigators from the EU Commission and the Danish authorities searched the offices. In July 2001 the penalties followed: 17.5 million euros for Maersk Air, 43.75 million euros for SAS. Company chief Ole Dietz resigned, and Flemming Ipsen took over management. The case is still regarded as a textbook example of how even seemingly normal airline cooperations are under close watch by competition authorities.

The end in 2005: sale and merger with Sterling

After the antitrust case and a difficult market environment with growing low-cost competition, the group decided to give up the passenger airline. On June 30, 2005, the Maersk Group announced the sale. The buyers were Icelandic investors who already owned the Danish leisure and low-cost airline Sterling. Those involved never made the purchase price public.

Some parts stayed with the group: the cargo division and the business aircraft. Maersk Air’s Boeing 737s were not sold but leased to Sterling. On September 13, 2005, the two airlines merged into Sterling Airlines, which then used only Boeing 737s. Sterling itself ceased flight operations in October 2008 after insolvency – and with that the last direct successor of Maersk Air disappeared too.

Risk of confusion: Maersk Air, Maersk Air UK and Maersk Air Cargo

If you sort photos, you should keep the different Maersk companies apart. This overview helps you do that:

Company	Period	What it was
Maersk Air	1969–2005	Danish passenger airline, subject of this page
Maersk Air UK	1993–2003	British Airways franchise out of Birmingham, in BA colors
Star Air	1987–2022	Cargo company, flew for UPS out of Cologne/Bonn, Maersk Air Cargo since 2022
Maersk Air Cargo	today	The group’s cargo airline, including out of Billund
Sterling Airlines	2005–2008	Successor after the merger, own livery

Maersk Air today: a topic for the archive

You will no longer see Maersk Air in passenger service. For spotters interested in Scandinavian aviation history, the airline remains exciting anyway. Many shots were taken at Kastrup and Billund, and Maersk slides turn up regularly in collections. Right alongside, the other Danish airlines of that era are worth a look, such as Sterling and Cimber Air.

If you travel to Denmark today, the Copenhagen-Kastrup spotter guide has the right locations, including the popular Flyvergrillen. A trip into history is offered by the Danmarks Flymuseum at Stauning Airport – Stauning was one of Maersk Air’s first destinations.

Common mix-ups

• Taking every star for Maersk Air – today’s freighters of Maersk Air Cargo wear it too.
• Looking for Maersk Air UK in the Maersk look – the British subsidiary flew in British Airways colors.
• Taking Maersk Air for a pure charter airline – it flew scheduled, charter, cargo and helicopters.
• Mixing up the 737-500 and the 737-300 – the -500 is visibly shorter.
• Assigning Sterling photos from 2005 to Maersk Air – after the merger the 737s flew in Sterling colors.
• Taking the Boeing 720 for a 707 – the 720 is shorter and was in service at Maersk Air only until 1981.

Conclusion

For 36 years, Maersk Air was the airline of the shipping line A. P. Møller-Mærsk. From Copenhagen and Billund it flew across Denmark and Europe, first with Fokker turboprops, then with almost every generation of the Boeing 737. The antitrust case with SAS and a tougher market led to the sale in 2005, and in September 2005 Maersk Air merged into Sterling. For you as a spotter, the airline lives on in photos and logbooks – and if you read star, colors, type and registration together, you can classify these pictures with confidence.