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Hotel Italia
Saturday September 6, 2008
Air Bahama 40 year anniversary


Once more, I must say that it has been a 
wonderful evening there in Hotel Italia, 
and Lilian, Elisa and I will certainly 
remember this for a long time. Also, I 
would like to express my gratitude to all 
of the good people that made this event 
happen!

I wonder if there are many other companies 
in the world that are able to evoke such 
strong feelings and memories in so many 
people, after so many years, as Air Bahama 
still does today?

Air Bahama was mainly known to the regular 
Luxembourgian by this beautifully painted 
DC-8-63 aircraft he could see flying over 
the city every day. Moreover, a huge poster, 
displaying a sun-tanned girl at a Bahamian 
beach, in the window of our “Town office”, 
arose much public attention - you could 
already spot it when coming out of the train 
station across the street.
 
With its shining white and red colours and 
the sun on its tail, the Air Bahama airplane 
seemed to bring along a small part of the 
Caribbean Sea to this cool and rainy Central 
Europe. It was so much different from all the 
other, regular, airliners you could see, and 
it was by far the most beautiful aircraft 
around. In fact, I haven’t seen anything 
like it after it was gone.
 
Remarkably, the heydays of International Air 
Bahama and Loftleidir Icelandic Airlines at 
the beginning of the 1970s were, at the same 
time, the heydays of Luxembourg airport. It 
was a time, when it seemed that this makeshift 
looking “ Luxembourg Departure and Arrival hall” 
would soon burst into pieces, with all those 
large aircraft bringing tons of folks from the 
US and the Bahamas over here. Hundreds of 
Hippies streamed in and out, and when left 
behind, because of overfilled flights, they 
simply arranged for an overnight in their 
sleeping bags outside on the grass around the 
facilities. The low airfares of Loftleidir 
Icelandic Airlines produced a sort of over-
production, resulting in full flights and stiff 
over-bookings, sometimes forcing the company to 
throw in extra flights to evacuate the massive 
number of standby passengers. 

All this, in conjunction with long delays “due 
to technical”, sometimes made for unheard-of 
situations, funny and not so funny, that would 
probably fill a whole book.
 
Sadly, once Air Bahama, and later on, Icelandic 
Airlines, stopped operating to Luxembourg, we 
were left like a dog without a bone, and until 
today, without any flights to the USA, let alone 
to the Caribbean Sea.

Also, and even more sadly, the somewhat special 
and romantic aspect of aviation of that time has 
vanished today, and flying became a non-personal 
and strictly cost-effective mass carriage.
 
When I talk to younger colleagues today about Air 
Bahama and Loftleidir Icelandic Airlines, it 
appears that most of them haven’t even heard these 
names, and some cannot believe that all this was 
going on in tiny Luxembourg more than 35 years ago. 
But then again, they might not even know who Jimi 
Hendrix was ...
 
Long gone the days when an elegant, shiny red and 
white DC-8 came thundering across the sky over 
Luxembourg, on it’s way down to the Bahamas. But 
very comforting the fact, that there are so many, 
that still remember those glorious days, and that 
manifest this strongly by meeting and having a good 
time together. 

Keep it up, Air Bahama, and let’s all be 
“Eleutheran Adventurers”!

See you all soon!
 
Tom Brandenburger
Luxembourg