Freddie Laker

Sir Frederick Alfred Laker (born 1922), better known as Sir Freddie Laker is a legendary British airline owner. He was one of the first airline owners to introduce the so called No-frills airline system, one which has proven to be a very successful system worldwide.

Laker, original from Kent[?], started working in aviation with the Short brothers. He was a member of the Air Transport Auxiliary team during the World War II years, from 1941 to 1946.

In 1960, he joined British United Airways[?], where he was manager for five years. It was while with British United that Laker learned the ropes in the airline managing business. So, in 1966, he departed to form his own airline, Laker Airways[?].

Laker Airways would become famous as a no-frills airline with time, joining Southwest Airlines as one of the airlines that started the wave consisting of such type of airlines.

In 1978, Laker was knighted, and in 1982, he launched a new airline service, named Skytrain[?]. Skytrain, however, did not do that well and soon it closed its operations.

With the years, Laker Airways moved it's operations base to Nassau[?], from where the airline still flies. One of Sir Freddie Laker's legacies would be that his name can be seen on the top of the fuselage of Laker Airways' jets every day, because his airline's name is also his last name.