Tom Darymple's experience in the travel business is such that he was on the first charter flight out of Scotland in 1965.

The veteran tour operator started his own airline, Flyglobespan, in 2002, after suffering a long delay on a cheap flight from London to Scotland. He reveals this while discussing the horrors of a year in which issues with the airline’s new transatlantic routes turned a healthy £3.5m profit into a £13m loss.

Firstly, engine problems with two aircraft leased from Icelandair threw Flyglobespan’s new services to the US and Canada into disarray.

“In 12 years, they had had just one engine problem with their Boeing 757s,” said Dalrymple. “Last year we had problems with three of the four engines on our two planes from them. An engine check means eight days of no flying — I have never come across this amount of bad luck.”

Then last June, Flyglobespan was one of the worst affected airlines when Glasgow airport was attacked by terrorists. “We had five aircraft on the ground at Glasgow; we were the biggest carrier using the airport that day,” recalled Dalrymple. “We had people in Europe waiting to get home and these planes were locked there for 24 hours.

“Some 3,000-4,000 people were affected and we had to get them moving. Somehow, we did it, but in coping with that and the other problems, we had to use some of the planes from our successful European routes as backup, and by the time it was over, we’d been unable to achieve our peak-season price.”

The result of those painful 12 months was 2007’s £13m net loss. This year looks better, though expansionist ambitions have been temporarily reined in.

Is he giving up on the Atlantic? Dalrymple makes it absolutely clear he is not. “I was born on the Atlantic,” he said, meaning Globespan’s original success was built on the back of a highly successful transatlantic charter business.

“I flew on the first charter out of Scotland and built my business on the Atlantic. I have fought these battles all my life and I love it.” That will be a “no” then.

To ensure 2008 would not be a repeat of 2007, the size of planes on transatlantic routes was reduced, and now all 21 aircraft in its fleet are owned or operated by the airline. With the peak summer season now upon us, Flyglobespan is “optimistic” about making a profit; but what if something unexpected comes along?

“The challenge would be just the same but the ability of the airline to recover would make it easier to do that,” said Dalrymple.

“Even with all the Atlantic problems, 90% of the business operated smoothly. We even got a good fillage on the planes, but not the price we wanted. As for this year, it is a more modern fleet and it’s all our own.”

2008 hasn’t been incident-free. Last week the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said it would prosecute the airline after claims that it had breached safety rules. The Edinburgh-based firm is accused of allowing a flight from Liverpool to New York to take off with engine sensors not working, but will defend the charges.

Dalrymple said the airline had to operate under a CAA-approved minimum equipment list (MEL), which details what must be functioning on the plane before it is allowed to fly. He said: “It is our list and the CAA rubber-stamps it. There is an interpretation that we made, as far as flying this aircraft, that we say is in accordance with the MEL. The CAA’s view is that some items are not, but we are defending our position aggressively . . . that was an aircraft that flew in compliance with MEL.”

The Globespan Group has been Dalrymple’s baby since he set up as a tour operator in 1974. The 63-year-old workaholic took a conscious decision last year to spread the workload, hiring Rick Green — formerly of MyTravel — as chief executive, and bringing Brian Cassidy into the management team. “As we grew, I thought we needed more brain-power but I could still do it on my own, and probably do it better,” says Dalrymple, laughing.

Green backs him up. “When I was coming here, I was locked in for six to 12 months; last summer I kept trying to call Tom and couldn’t get him. I thought he was at it, but in fact he was doing yield control between 5am and 7am, looking at on-time performance between 7am and 9am, then doing his normal everyday stuff.”

The three of them now “argue the toss all day, as Dalrymple puts it, but it is clear he enjoys working with his team. His aim for Flyglobespan has been to build a Scottish-based low-cost carrier competing with rivals such as Easyjet and Ryanair, while offering more. “Because we are tour operators as well, we solve the problems airlines have, of finding the passengers,” said Dalrymple, adding: “We only sail where there is gold.”

Europe remains its bread and butter, but it is one of the first to get Boeing’s new, lighter, more efficient 787 Dreamliners, which will allow it to fly much further. The planes are late and no decision has yet been made on where they will fly. Fuel remains a worry, though. Flyglobespan is “about three-quarters hedged” against further rises in oil prices, meaning it has an option on buying fuel in advance.

“We are well able to cope with the horror story of $100 or $200 a barrel of oil, but it will affect the market,” said Dalrymple. “Nobody can live with selling a £150 seat for £1 a ticket. We burn more fuel because we are so far north. Every flight is three to four hours minimum, not the hour-long hops of the Ryans and Easys. So we got rid of our old gas-guzzling planes and now we have the most fuel-efficient fleet in the land.”

He has done one deal to lease one surplus plane to Oman Air for a year, and others are in the pipeline. “There are plenty of old planes about but all of ours are new and efficient, so there is demand. It is about using your resources well,” said Dalrymple.

If the group returns to profit, it will be able to take advantage of consolidation within the industry, which Dalrymple thinks is inevitable. “We have the best planes and slots at our airports here,” he said.

“It is about getting into the right shape and size this year and that means we will be in a healthy position to take advantage of that excess capacity.”

More than 40 years after that first charter flight, it is clear that Dalrymple’s ambitions still have much further to go.

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