Air Europe

If you flew from Britain on a package holiday in the 1980s, you may well have landed in an Air Europe Boeing. The Gatwick airline was the flying arm of the tour operator Intasun, relied on brand-new jets from the start and wanted to be more than a leisure airline: a European scheduled carrier with sister companies in several countries. In March 1991 it was all over from one day to the next. Here you learn what made Air Europe special, which types it flew and where you can still find its traces today.

Air Europe at a glance

Air Europe was a British charter and scheduled airline with its main base at London Gatwick. It was founded in 1978 as Inter European Airways and got its final name the following year. The founders Errol Cossey and Martin O’Regan both came from Dan-Air and knew the charter business inside out. The money came from Harry Goodman, who had built up the tour operator Intasun in the 1970s. Airline and tour operator later came under the umbrella of the International Leisure Group (ILG).

The principle was simple: Intasun sold package holidays, Air Europe flew the vacationers to their destination. Because the tour operator filled the seats, the airline had good load factors from the start. It is considered the first new British charter airline to turn a profit in its very first year.

Later, the leisure airline grew into an airline with its own scheduled network, its own regional subsidiary and stakes in Spain, Germany, Italy and Norway. By the late 1980s, Air Europe was the largest airline based at Gatwick. According to the annual report for 1989, the group carried around 5.8 million passengers.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code AE: appeared in flight numbers, on tickets and in timetables from October 1980.
• Provisional code KS: In the early days, flights ran under this code; the first flight was KS 1004.
• Callsign AIR EUROPE: how the crews identified themselves on the radio.

We deliberately do not list the ICAO code here because the sources disagree on it. If you are working through old tickets, boarding passes or timetables, the code AE is what helps most. How the two code systems are built in general is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes. If you are interested in radio callsigns, read more at airline callsigns and their history.

The history in stages

The start in 1979

Air Europe took a different path from many British charter airlines of the time. Instead of picking up used jets cheaply – as Dan-Air, for example, turned into an art – it started with three brand-new Boeing 737-200 Advanced – by no means a given for a young British charter airline at the time. The first aircraft carried the registration G-BMHG and the name “Adam” and flew to Palma de Mallorca on May 4, 1979, with 130 seats.

The first summer went remarkably well. In August 1979 the average load factor was 94 percent, and in September the 100,000th passenger boarded. From autumn 1979, Air Europe also flew from Manchester, and Cardiff was added in 1982.

From leisure airline to scheduled carrier

A first attempt to get a scheduled route from Gatwick to Miami failed in 1980 at the British aviation authority. The breakthrough did not come until the mid-1980s: on May 2, 1985, the first scheduled route Gatwick–Palma started, four times a week. In November 1985, Gibraltar followed from Gatwick, and a year later from Manchester as well.

From late 1987, Air Europe moved onto the major European routes: Munich in December 1987, Paris Charles de Gaulle in February 1988, Brussels in April 1988. By 1989, further destinations such as Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, Rome, Oslo, Stockholm, Geneva and Malta were added, in part together with the regional subsidiary, and in October 1988 a business class of its own. That put Air Europe, as a private airline, in direct competition with the big state-owned carriers. What distinguishes a scheduled flight from a charter is covered in the article charter flight vs. scheduled flight.

The fleet: new Boeings and the Fokker 100

Air Europe consistently relied on modern aircraft. The most important types at a glance:

Type	Period at Air Europe	Use	Spotter tip
Boeing 737-200 Advanced	1979–1988	Leisure flights, first fleet	Delivered new, first flight to Palma
Boeing 757-200	1983–1991	Charter, long-haul charter from 1989	First aircraft G-BKRM “Fiona”
Boeing 737-300	from 1987	Charter and scheduled	Classic generation with CFM56
Boeing 737-400	from 1989	Charter and scheduled	Stretched Classic version
Fokker 100	1989–1991	Scheduled flights from Gatwick	Partly with Dutch PH- registrations
Boeing 747	1989	Long-haul charter, leased	Leased with a Tower Air crew

Boeing 737: from the first day to the last

The Boeing 737-200 was Air Europe’s first aircraft. In 1982 the core of the fleet consisted of seven aircraft delivered new, plus three more acquired through a swap agreement with a US airline. Air Europe flew the -200 series until 1988.

From 1987 the Boeing 737-300 joined, and from 1989 the longer Boeing 737-400. Both belong to the Classic generation with the fatter CFM56 engines. How to tell 737 generations apart in photos is explained in the article telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart. The manufacturer of both variants is Boeing.

Boeing 757: an early adopter

Air Europe was among the early operators of the Boeing 757-200. The first aircraft, G-BKRM, named “Fiona,” flew its first passenger flight on April 24, 1983, from Gatwick to Faro. The second, G-BPGW, joined in March 1984 on the Gatwick–Milan route, and Air Europe ordered a third directly from Boeing.

The 757 was also the key to longer routes. Air Europe equipped its 757s early for ETOPS operations, meaning twin-engine flights over greater distances from diversion airports. From 1989 it used them for charter flights across the Atlantic to Orlando as well as to Goa and Malé. For even more capacity, Air Europe leased a jumbo jet with crew from Tower Air in 1989 and flew charters to Bangkok, Barbados, Orlando and Acapulco. How to tell the 757 from the similar 767 is shown in the article telling the Boeing 757 and 767 apart.

Fokker 100 for scheduled service

For its growing scheduled network, Air Europe ordered eleven Fokker 100s in March 1988, with options on eleven more. The smaller jet was meant to fly thinner routes much more cheaply than the 737. The first scheduled flight with the type went from Gatwick to Brussels on December 4, 1989. The Fokker 100s flew, at least in part, with Dutch registrations, such as PH-ZCL. The manufacturer was Fokker of the Netherlands.

Ordered but never flown

In the late 1980s, Air Europe planned big. It was launch customer for the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 with Rolls-Royce engines: six firm orders, twelve options, deliveries from 1993. In addition, more 757s and 737-400s were on order, and in April 1990 a letter of intent for 40 Airbus A320s. None of these large orders was ever fulfilled – the airline did not exist long enough.

The Air Europe group

Harry Goodman had a European idea: under the umbrella of Airlines of Europe, companies in several countries were to appear in the same look and under similar names. Because the rules at the time limited foreign majority stakes, ILG bought in with minority shares in each case:

• Spain: 25 percent of Air España, based in Palma, which operated as Air Europa.
• Germany: 49 percent of Nürnberger Flugdienst (NFD), which operated for a time as Air Europe Germany.
• Italy: 35 percent of an Italian company that flew as Air Europe Italy from 1989.
• Norway: 33 percent of Norway Airlines.

There was also the regional subsidiary Air Europe Express. It grew out of the Gatwick airline Connectair, acquired in 1988, and flew under its new name from February 1989, to Antwerp, Düsseldorf and Rotterdam, among others. In 1989, the acquired Guernsey Airlines was added.

Interesting for spotters: the sisters flew in the Air Europe look. The easiest way to tell them apart was the national flag behind the titles on the upper fuselage – and of course the registration. After the insolvency, some Spanish and Italian companies kept the livery for a while. Such transitional liveries are a collecting field of their own; more on this in the article on hybrid and mixed liveries.

How to recognize Air Europe

Today you mostly encounter Air Europe in photos, slides and old timetables. These features help with identification:

• “Air Europe” titles on the white upper fuselage.
• Type and period: A 737-200 between 1979 and 1988, a 757-200 from 1983 or a Fokker 100 from late 1989 fit the picture.
• Location: Gatwick, Manchester, Cardiff and the classic vacation destinations around the Mediterranean.
• Registration: G- on the British Boeing fleet, other country prefixes on sister airlines.

If old liveries appeal to you in general, take a look at the legendary airline liveries and the tips under recognizing vintage aircraft.

Safety

Throughout its history, Air Europe had no fatal accident involving its own aircraft. The best-known incident involved the Fokker 100 PH-ZCL: on December 17, 1989, on a flight from Copenhagen to Gatwick, a fire broke out in the cockpit. The crew returned to Copenhagen, and all 88 people on board were unharmed.

The end in March 1991

From 1989, ILG already had trouble financing its aircraft orders. Many aircraft did not belong to the airline at all but had been sold and leased back. Then a lot came together: the recession in Britain caused demand to collapse, and the Gulf crisis from summer 1990 scared off vacationers and pushed up jet fuel prices. The stakes across Europe had tied up additional money.

When backers pulled out, ILG and its British subsidiaries went insolvent in early March 1991. On March 8, 1991, Air Europe and Air Europe Express ceased operations. Around 4,000 jobs were lost. An overview of similar collapses is in the article major airline failures in Europe.

What came next

• Air Europa in Spain carried on under new owners and is a major Spanish airline today.
• Nürnberger Flugdienst was rescued: Hans Rudolf Wöhrl bought ILG’s stake back from the administrator.
• Norway Airlines, by contrast, could not survive in the long run.
• Air Europe Express was bought back by former Connectair management and relaunched as Euroworld. That became CityFlyer Express, which joined British Airways in 1999 – a lineage that runs through to BA CityFlyer.
• Dan-Air took over some routes of its vanished competitor but itself went to British Airways in 1992.

In leisure flying, Airtours International is seen by many as the spiritual successor to Intasun and Air Europe. Other British names of that era, such as Britannia Airways, Monarch Airlines and British Caledonian, against which ILG made unsuccessful takeover bids in 1986 and 1987, are now history as well.

Traces of Air Europe today

You can no longer spot Air Europe live. But you can still experience its types and airports:

Manchester and Gibraltar are also among the places where Air Europe was regularly seen and which remain appealing for spotters today.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing Air Europe with Air Europa – the British airline ended in 1991, while the Spanish Air Europa still flies today.
• Assuming every “Air Europe” is British – sister companies in Italy and Norway wore similar names and the same look.
• Thinking Air Europe was a used-aircraft airline – quite the opposite, it started with brand-new 737s.
• Assigning the code AE to a current airline – in historical records up to 1991, AE stands for Air Europe.

Conclusion

Air Europe was ahead of its time in many ways: brand-new jets for package vacationers, early 757 operations across the Atlantic, a private scheduled network on the major European routes and the idea of an airline family across national borders. That very ambition proved its undoing when recession, the Gulf crisis and debts came together. Today the story lives on in old photos, in the Spanish Air Europa and in the airports where it all began.