of its scheduled operation by concentrating on maximising revenues from high-yield travellers. Sale to British Airways Following inconclusive talks with Virgin Atlantic to save Dan-Air in return for an investment of £10 million, the airline was sold to British Airways in 1992. British Airways paid a nominal £1, in return taking on financial commitments of £50 million which included debts of £37 million. For its part, British Airways got 12 of Dan-Air's most modern Boeing 737s, a similar number of short-haul scheduled routes from Gatwick, the Heathrow–Inverness feeder service and about one-fifth of its 2,500 workers. Dan-Air was absorbed into British Airways' Gatwick operation. On 27 November 1992, the company's name was changed from Dan Air Services Ltd to British Airways (European Operations at Gatwick) Ltd. This remnant of the former Dan-Air formed the nucleus of what British Airways intended to be a low-cost short-haul feeder for its Gatwick long-haul scheduled services, with the aim of helping to return British Airways' loss-making Gatwick operation to sustained profitability. Corporate affairs Headquarters From 1953 to 1987, Dan-Air had its headquarters at the City of London in Bilbao House. Fleet It operated the world's largest fleet of de Havilland Comets and was the last in the world to operate them. Dan-Air built a 49-strong Comet fleet between 1966 and 1976. It retired the last example in November 1980. Not all of these airframes saw actual airline service; some had been exclusively acquired for spares. The Comets commanded a lower price than comparable second-hand jets. They were relatively unused as many previous operators had replaced them with the larger and more economical Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 after only a few years. The airframes had many years of service left and cost a fraction of the similarly sized BAC One-Eleven 500 or Boeing 737-200, which were still scarce second-hand. It allowed the airline to replace most of its piston-engined airliners – such as the Avro York, the Bristol 170 Freighter and the Airspeed AS 57 Ambassador – which had reached or were nearing the end of their lives, relatively cheaply. Dan-Air was the last commercial airline operator of the Ambassador. A small number of this high-winged, twin-engined plane survived in the fleet into the jet era. The last retired in September 1971 after its final Jersey–Gatwick scheduled service. Dan-Air was the first British operator of the Boeing 727 trijet, at the time the world's