DDA Classic Airlines' final year

The year 2024 will be the final year for DDA Classic Airlines (formerly known as Dutch Dakota Association) operator of Douglas DC-3C PH-PBA 'Prinses Amalia'. The board of the volunteer organisation has revaled that, albeit it with enormous regret, 1 October 2024 will mark the end of the flying activities.

In an e-mail to their supporters, which was sent on 12 February, it was revealed how this dramatic step had become inevitable. Increasing costs of housing, landing fees and a gigantic rise in insurance fees have become insurmountable for a volunteer organization like DDA Classic Airlines that has to do without a major sponsor. For seven years supermarket chain Jumbo was DDA's major financial sponsor, but witdrew as such on 1 January 2023.

Other factors that contributed to the decision were the ever increasing difficulty in obtaining AVGAS (the type of fuel consumed by a piston engined airliner like the Dakota), the decrease in potential trip destinations related to environmental issues and the difficulty of finding qualified maintenance volunteers.
Summarizing all these factors, DDA's board could only take one decision: to pull the plug.

But until it is 1 October, DDA Classic Airlines is determined to offer an attractive final season of flying activities. The highlight of these will coincide with the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, the Invasion on the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944. Like in 2019 (75th Anniversary) DDA Classic Airlines will be present there, together with an impressive number of Dakotas from several European countries and the USA. The Dutch PH-PBA itself is a veteran of both D-Day and 'Operation Market Garden' in the Netherlands in September 1944.

So come and take the chance to fly her while you still can!

Photo: PH-PBA at Caen-Carpiquet on 6 June 2019 (Gert Jan Mentink)