History
The first Palmair charter took place in 1958 with a single flight to Palma followed a year later with just 2 flights. Over the following years the number of flights increased and expanded to a range of destinations, chartering aircraft from a number of different airlines.
In 1993 the company formed its own airline, Palmair Flightline, operating a BAe 146 aircraft. Upgraded aircraft were acquired in 1999 to reflect increased demand for capacity from Bournemouth and for the introduction of longer range routes. Until winter 1999 services was operated by Flightline, using a single BAe 146-300. In 2003 Palmair carried 75,000 passengers. In 2004 the company operated scheduled passenger flights to ten European airports, and day trips to 25 European cities.
On 22 December 2006, founder, Peter Bath, who had previously seen off every flight personally, died, aged 79.
In November 2008, European Aviation, which had been operating a Boeing 737-200 for Palmair, ceased trading meaning that the Boeing 737-200 was grounded.
For winter 08/09, Palmair flights were operated by Jet2.com using a Boeing 737-300.
On 9 May 2009, Palmair resumed flights with a Boeing 737-500 aircraft operated by Astraeus. The continued using the plane until October 2010 when it left Bournemouth Airport for the last time. The original agreement between Palmair and Astraeus was for Palmair to use the plane up until April 2012, but due to unforeseen circumstances it had to be handed back to Astraeus.
And so during the Winter/Summer of 2010 Thomson Airways operated Palmairs routes which consisted of just Lanzarote and Tenerife. Thomson continued to operate these routes until April 2011 when Palmair finally pulled the plug. Given the current climate Palmair has been forced to cease its entire operations starting from Summer 2011. Bosses stated that they won't be issuing any new schedules for the airline in the foreseeable future and that Palmair would be placed in a deep freeze, at least until the climate improves.
The contributing factors to the down fall of Palmair was said to have been increasing competition from various low cost airlines using Bournemouth airport, rising fuel prices and the recession.
Previous managing director David Skillicorn was featured in an interview with local newspaper "The Daily Echo" in which he talked about his time while working at the company before leaving, in which his famous final words were "Never say never".
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