I don’t know how I missed this but this trail blazing company collapsed thirty years ago this year on 6th March 1991.
Formed as a carrier for Intasun (sometimes nicknamed Intascum) by their owner Harry Goodman and Errol Cossey the Company started operations at LGW with three 737-200 Advanced aircraft. Many staff were ex Court Line - the Airline was the first Company to be formed in the U.K. after the traumatic collapse of the Court Line empire the market place taking five years to start recovering from a dramatic collapse of business.
The company was innovative both by introducing new charter destinations - they were the first to market Orlando via Miami on Laker then direct on Air Florida with whom they had an interchange agreement: U.K. aircraft to USA in winter and USA aircraft to the U.K. in the summer - N37AF being a Glasgow regular in summer 82 following the collapse of Laker Airways.
Onboard service was excellent winning the company award after award and expansion soon came with a Manchester base followed by a Spanish operation - still in business today and soon to become part of IAG; Air Europa - which was regularly seen in Glasgow operating from Palma, Tenerife, Las Palmas and Malaga.
737-300 and 757s were introduced replacing the original fleet similar to Monarch who were the first IT operator of the 757. Long haul routes to Florida and Mexico with a fuel stop in Bangor Maine were the norm but not before the infamous “flying pig” 747 from Flying Tigers which gained bad press for technical delays.
The airlines of Europe concept saw sister companies in Germany, Norway, Italy and Spain working together and linking services through Gatwick as well as between the base countries themselves. This was slightly ahead of its time as EasyJet and Ryanair have taken this model to a pan European operation thanks to EU open skies.
Although everything in the garden looked rosy the reality was very different. A mini recession in 1985 saw a market downturn and the strength of the dollar made it attractive to reduce their own fleet and outsource many services to British Airtours then a state owned company.
Redundancies followed and the company never really recovered losing many senior staff who went elsewhere; Errol Cossey going on to firm Air 2000.
The focus became scheduled services - at any price! The deathknell of many a successful charter operator sounded once again. 737-400 and Fokker 100s were delivered with short haul business flights in the morning and evenings and leisure destinations sandwiched in between - a model copied by many loco carriers such as bmibaby, go and easyJet.
Needless to say the cost of marketing, club class, promotions and aircraft substitutions in the case of delays took their toll on operating costs and profit and despite a profitable tour operation it wasn’t sufficient to cover the entire operation. Then came the first Gulf War and bookings collapsed. A business loan from Swiss based Hudson Place Investments helped but it was short term and the company collapsed in a sea of debt unable to meet their financial commitments. The end had come.
At one time, at its zenith, the company was in talks to merge/ take over British Caledonian but they came to nothing. In the final year before its collapse the company did its utmost to deal death blows to its main competitor and rival at Gatwick, Dan Air London by removing flying contracts, engineering support and giving them bad press. All this was a smokescreen to divert attention from their own parlous situation. The irony was that before forming Air Europe Intasun was a substantial customer of Dan Air London.
The colourful tails of sunshine yellow, orange and red had been grounded for good.
Air Europe
Re: Air Europe
I flew Manchester to Acapulco on them in Oct 89 on a 757. Stopped in Bangor. We were so pished, dont remember arrival. Quality sesh.
Re: Air Europe
those were the days. Mr Boeing certainly made game changing aircraft with the 757/767 series. From Gerona to Goa, Agra to Acapulco, Phuket to Palma.Monarch did the LTN-BGR-ACA flights for Intasun I remember one of my Scottish Mutual pals went there on his honeymoon.
Hope all good with you have a great Christmas and best wishes for 2022.