PrivatAir

PrivatAir was founded in 1977 as a corporate flying division of the Latsis family under the name Petrolair. In 1979, air traffic began on a Boeing 737-200 and offered business travel flights. In 1989, a Boeing 757 and a Gulfstream IV were added, and the name was changed to PrivatAir. On June 1, 1995, the company was then licensed by the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation as a commercial airline.

In March 2001 the PrivatAir Group was formed. Also in March 2001, the PrivatAir Group gained ETOPS 180 minutes and FAA 129 Foreign Carrier approval as a designated carrier under the US-Switzerland bilateral "open skies" agreement. These approvals allow the company to offer the most direct routes across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and unlimited operations to the US. At the time, PrivatAir was the only ad hoc commercial charter operator in the world with these approvals.

In February 2002, PrivatAir completed the construction of its private terminal in Geneva, where its headquarters were then based. The new "C3" terminal was a joint venture between PrivatAir and Geneva International Airport and offered VIP passenger services to PrivatAir's customers. The corporate jet alliance AirClub was founded in Geneva in October 2012. In 2018 AirClub had eight members aside PrivatAir: ACM Air Charter, Air Alsie, Air Hamburg, Corporatejets, FLYINGGROUP, GlobeAir, London Executive Aviation and Masterjet.

In May 2003, PrivatAir and Swissport created the joint company PrivatPort, which is an executive-jet handling business. In October 2003, German subsidiary PrivatAir Germany GmbH, Düsseldorf, gained JAR – 145 approval from the German civil aviation authority, giving the company more autonomy and flexibility within the framework of its operations on behalf of Lufthansa and Airbus.

January 2005, PrivateAir flew Newark to Zurich under the LX18/19 flight numbers with a Boeing BBJ / BBJ2 with 56 all business class seats.

In November 2016, the majority of the company (51%) was taken over by the British investment company SilverArrow Capital.

In October 2018, the German aviation authorities suspended the licence of PrivatAir's German subsidiary. On 5 December 2018, PrivatAir announced the end of operations and filed for insolvency for both its Swiss and German business units, citing negative commercial developments.

Operations

Aside from private and corporate charter services, PrivatAir also operated its aircraft on behalf of different international airlines on a long-term basis for scheduled flights.

Between 2005 and 2011 Privatair flew daily flights, except Wednesdays, between Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and Houston for KLM, with a 44 all business class BBJ Boeing business jet in addition to KLM's own daily flight.

From June 2002 to June 2008, Privatair operated on behalf of Lufthansa a non-stop transatlantic service from Düsseldorf to Newark near New York City. To record, this was the first transatlantic flight which took off exclusively with Business Class. For this purpose the German subsidiary PrivatAir GmbH with legal seat in Duesseldorf, Germany was created, which operated not only the four Airbus in own responsibility, but was responsible for all maintenance of the group airplanes. In addition the company added three Boeing business jets.

From 2003 to 2008, PrivatAir carried out charter traffic for Airbus between the plants in Hamburg-Finkenwerder and Toulouse. This was subsequently taken over by OLT Express Germany. PrivatAir also operated a variety of other regular scheduled flights on behalf major airlines such as Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Pune and Nairobi and for Saudia on domestic services.