Bavaria BAC One Eleven Fun Jet D-AILY inflight circa early 1970s.

In the early 1970s, Bavaria focused their operations at Munich specializing in holiday charters to Mediterranean sun destinations, and by 1972, the airline had a fleet of seven brand new BAC One Elevens. D-AILY featured in the airlines promotional materials, and I recently came across some interesting 35mm slides produced by Bavaria to promote their new BAC One Eleven jets to the media, which were taken by G. Rauchwetter.

Bavaria BAC One Eleven Fun Jet D-AILY with four other Bavaria BAC One Elevens on the ramp awaiting passengers.

Flight attendant and cocktail service aboard Bavaria BAC One Eleven Fun Jet circa early 1970s.

Bavaria and Germanair were actually both owned by the same financier, and striving to save costs in the areas of administration and maintenance, closer coordination between the two company’s charter operations began in December, 1974, however the two companies kept separate identities. By the summer of 1975, the combined fleet was comprised of eleven BAC One Elevens, and two Fokker F28s.

Bavaria BAC One Eleven Fun Jet D-AILY inflight circa early 1970s as viewed from the passenger cabin of another BAC One Eleven.

On March 1, 1977, Bavaria and Germanair fully merged and the name “Bavaria/Germanair” was adopted, with 1.1 million IT passengers being carried that year from operations at Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich. Later in 1977, Hapag-Lloyd acquired 100% of the company and fully absorbed the company into their own charter operation in 1979, after government approvals had been put in place.

Bavaria’s lovely BAC One Elevens continued to operate in Germany flying IT charters with Hapag-Lloyd through 1981, when they were replaced by factory new 737-200s.

(Background info on Bavaria: The airline came into existence in 1957 as an air taxi company based at Munich. In May, 1964, Bavaria acquired an Handley Page Herald and commenced IT charter work on behalf of several German tour operators. A second Herald was acquired in 1965, and in 1967 the airline took delivery of its first BAC One Eleven jet. By 1968 the prop planes had been retired and the airline was now all jet equipped.)

Bavaria BAC One Eleven Fun Jet at Palma early 1970s.