How it started
The first Balair (1925–1931)
Basler Aviation AG - Balair was founded by Balz Zimmermann in 1925 in Basel. The name Balair is a reference to the French name of Basel: Bâle. The first route was from Basel to Freiburg and Mannheim. In 1929, Balair grew at Basel Airport, the largest airport in Switzerland, with direct flights to Zürich, Geneva, Lyon, Karlsruhe and Frankfurt. In response to the Great Depression, Balair (based in Basel) and Ad Astra Aero (based in Zürich) merged on 1 January 1931 to form Swissair, headquartered in Zürich. Up to that point, Balair had carried over 18,000 passengers, 320 tons of cargo, and 143 tons of mail. The company only flew in the summer and was mainly financed by federal subsidies and mail transportation for the Swiss post office.
The second Balair (1953–1993)
On 5 October 1952, the Basel electorate voted for the creation of a limited company. Soon, the second Balair was founded in January 1953, with Hans Peter Tschudin elected as the first president. In its early years, Balair was active in flight training, maintenance, and handling Swissair aircraft at Basel-Mulhouse Airport. Balair entered the charter business by acquiring two Vickers VC.1 Vikings in June 1957. In 1959, Swissair acquired a 40% stake in Balair. Two Swissair DC-4s were added to the fleet and later the DC-6 came into service in 1961.
During the Biafran airlift (1967–71), chartered aircraft, including C-97 Stratocruisers, delivered humanitarian aid to a remote Biafran airstrip in eastern Nigeria.
The airline's first jet aircraft was the Convair 990 Coronado and then the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 entered service followed by a Douglas DC-8-63CF which it flew on routes to Colombo, Bangkok and Rio de Janeiro.
From Wikipedia’s article on Balair, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2