Sunclass Airlines

If you stand at the fence in Gran Canaria in winter or Mallorca in summer, you see aircraft among the Ryanairs and Condors that are flying back to Scandinavia. One of them is called Sunclass Airlines. The name is young, the airline is not: behind Sunclass is one of the Nordic region’s most traditional charter companies – with stops as Premiair, MyTravel and Thomas Cook. This page shows you how to identify Sunclass with confidence, which Airbus types to expect and where a sighting is worthwhile.

Sunclass Airlines at a glance

Sunclass Airlines is a Danish leisure airline based in Dragør, right next to Copenhagen Airport. The airline belongs to the Nordic Leisure Travel Group, which sells package holidays in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland – under brands such as Ving, Spies and Tjäreborg. Sunclass is this group’s in-house flight operation: the aircraft take the operators’ guests to hotels on the Mediterranean, in the Canary Islands and at long-haul destinations.

That sets Sunclass clearly apart from a low-cost airline. Individual seats are sold, but package tours form the backbone. If you wonder where the line between charter and scheduled service runs, the article Charter flights vs. scheduled flights will help.

Large and mid-sized airports in all four Nordic countries serve as bases: Copenhagen and Billund in Denmark, Stockholm Arlanda, Gothenburg and Malmö in Sweden, Oslo Gardermoen in Norway and Helsinki in Finland. There is no classic hub for connecting – the aircraft depart in the morning from where the vacationers live.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code DK: appears in the flight number, on departure boards and in travel documents.
• ICAO code VKG: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on most flight trackers.
• Callsign VIKING: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

Sunclass took over these codes from Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia when the name changed in 2019. That the IATA code happens to be DK is convenient, but coincidence as far as the system goes: IATA codes are pure airline identifiers and not country codes. So do not mistake the flight number for an indication of origin – the OY registration gives you that. How registrations are structured in general is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

Four names, one airline: the history

Sunclass is an airline with many past lives. For spotters that is exciting, because old photos of the same company show very different liveries.

Period	Name	Background
until 1993	Conair of Scandinavia and Scanair	Conair belonged to the Danish travel group Spies, Scanair to the Swedish Scandinavian Leisure Group
1994–2002	Premiair	Merger of the two charter companies; in the same year the British group Airtours took over the Swedish parent
2002–2008	MyTravel Airways (Scandinavia)	Airtours had renamed itself MyTravel Group
2008–2019	Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia	MyTravel was absorbed into the Thomas Cook Group
since 2019	Sunclass Airlines	Restart after the Thomas Cook collapse under Scandinavian owners

The Premiair years in particular are a case for fans of historic aircraft. The airline then flew Airbus A300B4s, A320s and – on long-haul – the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. The three-engine jets disappeared around 2001, and later A330-200s took over the long-haul routes. You will find the British sisters of the MyTravel and Thomas Cook years under Airtours International and Thomas Cook Airlines.

The break in autumn 2019

On September 23, 2019, the British Thomas Cook Group went insolvent. Thomas Cook Airlines in Britain ceased operations for good, while the Scandinavian subsidiary survived. It paused briefly, resumed flight operations and became part of a rescue package: at the end of October 2019 it became known that a consortium of Strawberry (the holding company of Norwegian hotel entrepreneur Petter Stordalen), Altor and TDR Capital would take over the northern European travel business with Ving, Spies, Tjäreborg and the airline. By the end of 2019 the airline had switched to the new name Sunclass Airlines. The parent is now called Nordic Leisure Travel Group.

In the transition period, the aircraft still wore the familiar Thomas Cook heart. Only after that did Sunclass get a look of its own. Photos from 2020 are therefore a small historical document: Sunclass operations, but still Thomas Cook looks.

The fleet: an all-Airbus family

Sunclass operates a small, manageable fleet of about a dozen aircraft – exclusively from the manufacturer Airbus. The exact number changes because older A321s are gradually being replaced by new aircraft.

Type	Use	Spotter note
Airbus A321	Canary Islands, Mediterranean, North Africa	Older generation, some already in service in Thomas Cook days
Airbus A321neo	like the A321, increasingly standard	Larger engines, gradually replacing the A321
Airbus A330-900neo	Long-haul, mainly in winter	Fleet flagship, high seat count for package tours
Airbus A330 (older generation)	Long-haul	A330-200 since retired, one single A330-300 most recently in the fleet

The A321 is the workhorse on the vacation routes. It is long enough for many seats and has the range for the Canary Islands from Scandinavia – one of the longest typical medium-haul routes in leisure traffic. The A330-900neo is the flagship: with it Sunclass flies to warmer climes, especially in the Nordic winter, such as Thailand or the Caribbean. In common fleet overviews, three A330-900neos were most recently listed in service.

As a leisure airline, Sunclass uses dense seating. According to publicly available fleet overviews, the A321 offers around 212 seats, the A321neo around 218 and the A330-900neo between 373 and 385 seats depending on the season. Take these figures as a rough guide – cabins are often adjusted in leisure traffic.

A321 or A321neo? How to tell them apart

Both versions wear the same livery and are almost the same length. Because Sunclass is in the middle of the changeover right now, a close look is worthwhile.

The most reliable feature is the engines. How to tell the whole family apart from the A318 to the A321 is explained in the guide Telling the A320 family apart. For the long-haul type, the article A330 or A340? helps – the A330-900neo stands out there with its large Rolls-Royce engines and widely swept wingtips. The older A330-300 and A330-200 generation, which you know mainly from photos of the Thomas Cook era, has smaller engines by comparison.

How to recognize Sunclass

The most striking feature is the “Sunclass” titles on the fuselage. More important for a clean identification, though, is the registration: Sunclass aircraft are registered in Denmark and carry the prefix OY-. Long-lived registrations are especially appealing: an aircraft that was already in service in Thomas Cook days shows up in your collection under several airline names.

Because Sunclass flew under other brand names for many years, older color schemes are a collecting field of their own. If you are looking for special liveries, the guide Finding special liveries will help.

Where you can spot Sunclass

Your best chances are at the Scandinavian bases – above all in Copenhagen Kastrup. There the aircraft usually depart early in the morning heading south and come back in the afternoon or evening. A good starting point is provided by the Copenhagen plane spotting guide and the spot Flyvergrillen, from which you look directly at runway 04L/22R and the taxiway in front of it. In Kastrup you meet SAS, Norwegian and many other Nordic airlines alongside Sunclass.

In the south you find Sunclass at the vacation destinations of the Nordic operators. Especially in the winter half-year, the Canary Islands are a meeting point for Scandinavian leisure airlines – tips on this are in the guide Plane spotting in the Canary Islands. Here you can photograph Sunclass right next to German leisure airlines like Condor.

In Germany itself, Sunclass is rare. If you still absolutely want to see the airline at your home airport, you need luck with an ad hoc charter or a diversion.

Sunclass in the Danish airline landscape

Denmark has a long tradition in leisure flying. Besides Premiair, Sterling Airlines and Maersk Air shaped the market; both are history today. Sunclass, by contrast, has continued in a direct line since 1994. Today Sunclass, Jettime and the network carrier SAS share the Danish field, supplemented by low-cost carriers like Norwegian.

Common mix-ups

• Taking DK for Denmark – it fits, but it is a coincidence: DK is the airline’s IATA code, and the country is only shown by the OY registration.
• Taking Sunclass for a new company – the airline has flown since 1994, just under changing names.
• Assigning Thomas Cook photos wrongly – before 2019 the company is called Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia, not Thomas Cook Airlines UK.
• Treating sharklets as a sure neo feature – older A321s can carry sharklets too; the engines decide.
• Confusing Sunclass with TUI fly Nordic or Novair – all three fly Nordic vacationers but belong to different groups.

Conclusion

Sunclass Airlines is proof that a new name says little about an airline’s age. Behind the titles are over 30 years of Scandinavian leisure flying, four brand names and a fleet that increasingly relies on the neo generation. If you note registration and ICAO code, you can follow the same aircraft across years and liveries – and with the A321neo and A330-900neo you have two modern Airbus types on your list that do not turn up in central Europe every day.