Freddie Laker, airline pioneer, dies at 83 Low-cost fares helped put BIA on map

MIAMI – Sir Freddie Laker, who changed the face of air travel with his low-cost trans-Atlantic Skytrain service that challenged the industry giants in the 1970s, has died. He was 83.

Laker pioneered the concept of cheap fares for the masses, and although his Skytrain venture eventually collapsed in 1982, he laid the foundations for the low-cost carriers that proliferate today.

He died Thursday at a hospital in Hollywood, Fla., said Mary Maino, managing director of Laker Airways/Bahamas Ltd., on Friday. Laker Airways/Bahamas was liquidated in August.

Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson, who named one of the planes in his fleet “Spirit of Sir Freddie” in tribute, said the ebullient Laker was one of Britain’s greatest entrepreneurs.

“He was a larger-than-life figure, with a wicked sense of humor, and a great friend,” Branson said.

Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said the industry had lost “one of its greatest pilots,” while easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou said Laker was “a true pioneer who inspired all of us in aviation to hang on in there.”

Laker set up the innovative Skytrain service in 1977, giving passengers the chance to fly across the Atlantic as easily as catching a train. No bookings were required, and if a flight filled up, passengers waited for the next one.

Laker Airways played an important part in the growth and stature of Bangor International Airport in the world during most of the 1970s. Bangor’s airport became known among European companies for how much they could get for their money.

One of the first to recognize this was Freddie Laker.

In the late 1970s, Laker, sometimes referred to as the P.T. Barnum in the British tourism industry, started what eventually grew to be a huge business by flying Europeans to Florida destinations for cut-rate fares. Under Laker’s fare structure, vacationing British citizens and middle-class Europeans who formerly viewed a trip to Key West, Fla., as out of their price range suddenly found the United States to be a viable holiday option. And those incoming flights used BIA as a fuel and U.S. Customs stop. “He had a tremendous impact upon our business here,” former airport manager Robert Ziegelaar said of Laker in a Bangor Daily News file story. “He had flights in here every day going to New York, Miami, even Los Angeles.”