Britannia Airways
| Britannia Airways | |
|---|---|
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| IATA code : | BY |
| ICAO code : | BAL |
| Call sign : | BRITANNIA |
| Founding: | 1961 |
| Operation stopped: | 2005 |
| Seat: |
London , UK
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| Home airport : | London Luton |
| Fleet size: | 47 |
| Aims: | international |
| Britannia Airways ceased operations in 2005. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Britannia Airways was a British charter airline based in London and based at London Luton Airport . Your successor from 2005 onwards was Thomsonfly , today's Thomson Airways .
history
Foundation and first years as Euravia
Britannia Airways was founded on December 1st, 1961 under the name Euravia . The company's home base was London Luton Airport . In the spring of 1962, the company received the first three Lockheed L-049 Constellations . The flight operations were opened on May 5, 1962 on behalf of the travel agent Universal Sky Tours on the route from Manchester to Palma de Mallorca . By taking over the Skyways airline and purchasing additional aircraft, the fleet increased to eight Lockheed Constellations by the 1963 summer season.
Further development as Britannia Airways
On August 16, 1964, the company changed its name to Britannia Airways . On December 6, 1964, the company received its first Bristol Britannia turboprop aircraft and gradually replaced the older Constellations with them.
The airline was taken over on April 25, 1965 by the tour operator Thomson Travel . From July 7, 1968, the company began using brand-new Boeing 737-200 jet planes , which gradually replaced the Bristol Britannia by the end of 1970.
From April 1971 to spring 1973, two Boeing 707s were operated on long-haul flights, mainly to Canada and the USA. With the bankruptcy of the charter airlines Court Line and Donaldson International Airways , Britannia Airways was able to secure additional market shares in 1974 and continue to expand. By 1982 the fleet increased to over 30 Boeing 737s .
On February 18, 1984, the Boeing 767-200, the first wide-body aircraft, whose range enabled long-haul flights to the Caribbean and Asia, was put into service. In the same year, the company carried over 4,000,000 passengers for the first time. On January 26, 1989, the airline Orion Airways was integrated into the company. In the spring of 1989 Britannia Airways received the route rights for flights to Australia , which were continued to New Zealand from 1992 . In German military airfields of the Royal Air Force Germany were Britannia seen regularly on charter flights for the British Forces machines. The last take-off from the RAF Gütersloh base was carried out on March 31, 1993 by a Boeing 767 from Britannia .
In January 1991 the first Boeing 757 was delivered, which replaced the smaller Boeing 737 by the beginning of summer 1994. Britannia led over the same German subsidiary from 1997 Britannia Airways GmbH IT charter flights from German airports in the Caribbean through. The German subsidiary based at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport ceased operations in April 2001 after losing its only customer. In 1998 Britannia Airways took over the airline Blue Scandinavia and then operated charter flights from Sweden under its own name. In the 1999 summer season, the company used four leased Airbus A320 aircraft for the first time from the European manufacturer Airbus .
Development since 2000 as part of TUI
In 2000, the British Thomson Travel Group was taken over by Preussag AG (known as TUI since 2002 ), which has also owned the German airline Hapag-Lloyd Flug since 1997 . From summer 2002, the aircraft of the TUI airlines were painted in a uniform blue color.
In 2005, all of the TUI Group's airlines were given new names with the uniform ending “fly”. Accordingly, on November 1, 2005, the name was changed from Britannia Airways to Thomsonfly .
Destinations
Britannia Airways mainly flew to tourist destinations in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America.
fleet
In the course of its history the company used the following types of aircraft:
- Airbus A320-200
- Boeing 707-300
- Boeing 737-200
- Boeing 737-800
- Boeing 757-200
- Boeing 767-200
- Boeing 767-300
- Bristol Britannia 102 and 175
- Lockheed L-049 Constellation
- Lockheed L-749 Constellation
Incidents
- On September 1, 1966, a Bristol Britannia 102 ( aircraft registration G-ANBB) fell below the safety altitude on the approach to Ljubljana Airport and hit about 3 kilometers from the runway threshold . The pilots had failed to calibrate the altimeters to the local air pressure and carried out the visual approach too low in the dark, as a result of which they lost visual contact with the illuminated runway. 98 of the 117 occupants were killed in the accident.
- On September 14, 1999, a Boeing 757-200 (registration number G-BYAG) touched down very hard during the night landing at Girona Airport after the entire runway lighting suddenly failed . The machine then came off the runway sideways and the landing gear broke. The aircraft was written off as a total loss.
See also
literature
- Ruled Britannia. In: Airliner World , January 2020, pp. 26–32
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Klaus Vomhof: Leisure Airlines of Europe . SCOVAL Publishing Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne 2001, ISBN 1-902236-09-2 .
- ↑ JP airline-fleets international, various years
- ↑ accident report G-anbb, Aviation Safety Network (English) , accessed on 18 December 2015
- ↑ accident report G-BYAG, Aviation Safety Network (English) , accessed on 18 December 2015
Airlines from the United Kingdom , British Overseas Territories and the Crown possessions of the British Crown
