Thomsonfly

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Thomsonfly

IATA BY	ICAO TOM	Callsign TOMSON
Founded		1962 (as Euravia)
Hubs		Birmingham International Airport Cardiff Airport London Gatwick London Luton Manchester Airport Newcastle Airport Doncaster Sheffield Airport
Focus cities		Bournemouth Airport Coventry Airport Doncaster-Sheffield Airport
Alliance		TUI Airlines
Fleet size		47 (2006)
Destinations		87
Parent company		TUI Airlines-(TUI Group)
Headquarters		Wigmore House, Luton
Key people		Colin Mitchell, Captain Nick Winspear
Website: http://www.thomsonfly.com

Thomsonfly (formerly Britannia Airways) is the low fares airline of Thomson Holidays with bases across the United Kingdom. Thomsonfly is the largest charter airline in the world with its main base being at Manchester Airport Thomsonfly operates services to 20 European cities. The bases include Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry (CVT), Glasgow, Liverpool, London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle, Doncaster-Sheffield and Teesside (Durham Tees Valley).

Thomsonfly Limited holds a United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority Type A Operating Licence permitting it to carry passengers, cargo and mail on aircraft with 20 or more seats ^[1]

1 History
2 Destinations
- 2.1 Europe
- 2.2 Worldwide
3 Fleet
4 Awards
5 Gallery
6 External links
7 References

[edit] History

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Britannia Airways Boeing 757-200 (2003)

Thomsonfly traces its roots to its parent airline, Britannia Airways, founded by Ted Langton to fulfill his holiday company's charter demands. The airline began as Euravia in 1962 with a small fleet of Lockheed Constellations. It moved on to the Bristol Britannia aircraft; the name was changed to Britannia Airways and remained until December 2004. The greatest period of growth came when Britannia acquired Boeing 737-200 aircraft and the fleet expanded to 45 aircraft. Britannia was the European launch customer for the Boeing 767 and then moved to an all-Boeing 767 and 757 fleet in the mid-1990s.

Realising that the Internet and a changing marketplace (taken advantage of by companies such as easyJet and Ryanair) was leaving them behind, Thomson Holidays initiated a web-oriented rebranding. It used the Thomsonfly name to include all of the UK flying operations and so the larger Britannia Airways was rebranded as Thomsonfly in 2005.

Thomsonfly Boeing 737-800 takes off

Scheduled operations began on 31 March 2004 with four Boeing 737-500s from a new passenger terminal at Coventry Airport. The airline became involved in controversy when it took over ownership of the airport lease. A small number of local residents and Warwick District Council mounted a campaign against regular passenger flights from the airport, which had previously been used for both passenger and freight aircraft. The planning case was contentious and lengthy, so Thomsonfly continued to operate from Coventry awaiting the outcome of the case. Planning permission has been granted for a larger passenger terminal and the ownership of the lease has passed to CAFCO, an airport and property development company with no links to TUI.

On 28 April 2005, Thomsonfly became the first airline to have a departure from Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield (Doncaster Sheffield Airport), the UK's newest airport. Thomsonfly was also the first airline to operate direct long haul services from the new Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield (Doncaster Sheffield Airport), which serves the highly populated Yorkshire, North Nottinghamshire & Lincolnshire regions. Thomsonfly remains the largest carrier at Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield (Doncaster Sheffield Airport) Coventry and Bournemouth airports.

Britannia Airways/Thomsonfly was the best on-time charter airline in 2004 as measured by the Air Transport Users' Council and also won the 'TravelWeekly' best UK charter airline award for 2004. Thomson Travel was taken over by the German company Preussag, in 2001 and was rebranded as TUI AG. Together with other acquisitions TUI became the world's largest travel company. Thomsonfly is part of Tui Airline Management (TAM).

On December 14, 2006 TUI announced that all its airlines from TUI Airlines will be rebranded as TUIfly by 2008.

In March the parent group of the airline First Choice Holidays PLC is to merge with the TUI AG, which will see Thomson Holidays and First choice Holidays combined. This will see a merger of both of the holiday companies airlines, (Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways). Which will be branded as TUIfly UK. This comes at at time when TUI is rebranding al of its aircraft to the TUIfly titels.