As more airlines continue to join a long list of carriers that were either taken over or went bust, today we thought we would take a look and see what happened to the UK’s Britannia Airways. Founded in 1961 as Euravia, the future Britannia Airways started life with a Lockheed Constellation delivered to its base at Luton Airport (LTN).
In its first year, Euravia benefitted from its close relationship with package holiday company Universal Sky Tours. You have to remember that back in the 1960’s air travel for the masses was still a new phenomenon in the UK. Euravia successfully managed to acquire rival charter airline Skyways in its first year of operations. Before Euravia was on the scene, Skyways was one of the UK’s most prominent independent airlines.
Euravia became Britannia Airways in 1964
By the summer of 1963, Euravia was operating a fleet of eight Lockheed Constellations and four Avro Yorks. If you are not familiar with the Avro York, it was a civilian derivative of the Avro Lancaster heavy bomber used during World War Two.
In August 1964, a decision was made to rebrand Euravia as Britannia Airways to coincide with the delivery of ex-British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Bristol Britannia turboprops. While brought in to replace the Constellations, the Bristal Britannia would also be replaced by newly arriving jets. During the late 1960s, Britannia Airways became the first charter airline to assign seating and offer hot inflight meals.
Lord Thompson buys Britannia Airways
The airline’s popularity was not missed by Fleet Street mogul Lord Thompson who was looking to diversify his business interests. As a result of its appeal, Britannia Airways became a part of the Thompson organization in 1965.
Thompson taking over Britannia gave the airline more financial power allowing it to acquire new Boeing 737-200 jetliners faster than would have been possible without Thompson. At the time of the purchases, Britannia Airways rattled a few cages as charter airlines were expected to purchase second-hand planes from national state carriers. It also lost them favor with the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) chairman, Sir George Edwards. He had fully expected that any British airline looking to buy short-haul jets would select the British-built BAC One-Eleven.
Despite Sir George lobbying the government to get Britannia to buy the One-Eleven, it fell on deaf ears, and by 1975 Britannia Airways had a fleet of 13 Boeing 737s. Focused primarily on ferrying British holidaymakers to Spain from provincial airports, Britannia Airways had ambitions further afield. In the 1980’s Britannia Airways became the first British airline to fly the Boeing 767 and commenced charter flights between the United Kingdom and Australia. In 1988 Britannia’s parent company Thompson bought Horizon Travel and its airline, Orion Airways, which was immediately integrated with Britannia.
Britannia Airways becomes Thompsonfly
Throughout the 1990’s Britannia Airways continued to expand under the Thompson umbrella even to the extent that it had its own subsidiary in Germany. In 2000 the Thompson Travel Group was taken over by Germany’s TUI Group, who then in 2004 decided to rebrand Britannia Airways as Thompsonfly.
Did you ever fly with Britannia Airways? If so, please tell us what you thought of them in the comments.
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