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Founded | 1988 | ||||||
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Ceased operations | 2006 | ||||||
Hubs | Portela Airport | ||||||
Headquarters | Lisbon, Portugal | ||||||
Key people | Vítor Pinto da Costa (President) | ||||||
Website | airluxor.com |
Air Luxor was an airline based in Luxor Plaza in Lisbon, Portugal, operating a limited number of scheduled flights out of Portela Airport, Lisbon. The airline's operations were located in Building C1 and Hangar 7 in Delta Park, an area in Lisbon Airport.
The airline was established by the Mirpuri family, which decided to turn their private aviation company, consisting of a fleet of small aircraft, into a public airline. Thus, Air Luxor was established in December 1988.
In 1997, Air Luxor extended its operations to commercial aviation, first in the charter sector and then, from 2001, concentrating on scheduled flights. In October 2003, a marketing concept called Air Luxor Light was introduced offering low-cost operations.
In 2005, the airline had plans to rebrand itself as Hifly. The idea of Hi Fly was indeed realized by the Mirpuri family, but with a newly founded airline using an Air Luxor A330-300 as its first aircraft. At that time, deep financial troubles with Air Luxor emerged, resulting in the discontinuation of some flight routes, including Lisbon and Porto to Paris or Lisbon to Praia in May 2006. In July of the same year, Air Luxor (including all sister projects) was sold to a group of Portuguese-Canadian investors, which were associated to the Longstock Financial Group. Only two Airbus A320-200s remained with Air Luxor. which were temporarily grounded in September 2006 by the lessors due to unpaid leasing fees. The dispute was settled and Air Luxor was briefly operational again, until fully shut-down in October of that year. The two A320s were subsequently broken up, while the A330-300 remains on Hi Fly's roster.
Upon closure, Air Luxor operated scheduled flights to the following destinations:
Over the years, the Air Luxor fleet consisted of these aircraft types: