Air UK

If you leaf through old timetables of British regional airports from the 1980s and 1990s, you keep coming across one name: Air UK. The airline connected Scotland, northern England, East Anglia and the Channel Islands with each other and with the Continent – above all with Amsterdam. For fans of European regional aircraft it is a real classic, because at Air UK the Fokker F27, Handley Page Herald, BAe 146 and Fokker 100 flew side by side. Here you will learn how the airline came about, what defined its fleet, how to recognize it in old photos and how it finally became KLM uk.

Air UK at a glance

Air UK was a British regional airline formed through a merger on January 1, 1980; first operations under the new name took place on January 16, 1980. The two big partners were British Island Airways (BIA) and Air Anglia from Norwich. Shortly before, each had swallowed a smaller company: BIA took over Air Westward in March 1979, and Air Anglia took over Air Wales in June 1979. Four airlines thus became one.

Behind Air UK stood the holding company British Air Transport, 90 percent owned by the conglomerate British & Commonwealth and 10 percent by the insurer Eagle Star. At its start Air UK was Britain’s largest regional airline and the third-largest British scheduled operator – with about 1,700 employees, around 40 aircraft and over a million passengers a year.

The headquarters was initially in Redhill, the former seat of BIA, later in Crawley and, from 1988, at London-Stansted Airport. The most important technical center remained Norwich throughout, the old home of Air Anglia. In the first years there was also a maintenance base in Blackpool, which was closed in the cost-cutting rounds of the early 1980s.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code UK: appeared before flight numbers, on tickets and in timetables.
• ICAO code UKA: used by air traffic control to identify flights.
• Callsign UKAY: how the crews identified themselves on the radio – a phonetic rendering of “UK.”

The codes initially stayed in use even after the renaming to KLM uk. If you go through old timetables or boarding passes, you can usually assign flights with “UK” before the number from that period to Air UK or KLM uk. How the two code systems work is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes. And why callsigns sometimes sound completely different from the airline name, you can read in Airline callsigns and their history.

The history in stages

The three London airports

A special feature of Air UK: it was the first British scheduled airline to serve all three major London airports – Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. In April 1980 it took over several regional routes from British Airways, such as Heathrow–Guernsey, Manchester–Isle of Man, Leeds–Belfast and Leeds–Dublin as well as Edinburgh–Jersey. After the end of British Caledonian, Air UK received the rights for Gatwick–Glasgow and Gatwick–Edinburgh in 1988; as early as 1985 it had taken over BCal feeders from Glasgow and Newcastle to Amsterdam.

The name remains most closely tied to London-Stansted, though. The headquarters was there from 1988, and from 1991 Air UK was a tenant in the then-new terminal. The network from Stansted grew considerably in the early 1990s and reached Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Madrid and Zurich, among others. Economically, however, Stansted remained a difficult proposition – the airport back then was nowhere near as important as it later became through the low-cost carriers.

The fleet: Fokker, Herald and BAe 146

For long stretches Air UK was a turboprop airline with a few jets. Only in the 1990s did the balance shift toward jets. The main types at a glance:

Type	Period at Air UK	Use	Spotter tip
Fokker F27 Friendship	1980–1998	Workhorse on regional routes	At first Series 100/200 ex Air Anglia, later F27-500
Handley Page Herald	early 1980s	Regional routes	British high-wing aircraft, ex BIA
Fokker F28 Fellowship	early 1980s	Jet of the early period	Came from Air Anglia
BAC One-Eleven	early 1980s	Jet of the early period	From the BIA fleet
Embraer Bandeirante	early 1980s	Thin routes	Small turboprop from Brazil
Shorts 330 and 360	from 1983	Short regional routes	Boxy fuselage
BAe 146-100/-200/-300	from the end of the 1980s	Jets for Stansted, Scotland, Amsterdam	The 146-300 became the main type
Fokker 100	1990s	European routes	Eleven examples in 1997
Fokker 50	1990s	F27 successor	Nine examples in 1997

A few numbers show how the fleet changed: in summer 1980 it consisted of 37 aircraft, including 14 F27s, eleven Heralds, six Bandeirantes, four One-Elevens and two F28s. After the austerity drive there were only 21 in 1983. In spring 1997, shortly before the name ended, 36 aircraft flew for Air UK: ten BAe 146-300s, one 146-100, five F27-500s, nine Fokker 50s and eleven Fokker 100s. By then the workforce had grown again to about 2,000 people.

Fokker F27 and Fokker 50

No type shaped Air UK for as long as the Fokker F27 Friendship. Air Anglia had already brought ten F27s into the merger, and the Dutch high-wing aircraft remained in service to the end – most recently also as the F27-500F freighter version. The aircraft shuttled between British regional airports, the Channel Islands and Amsterdam. In the 1990s the more modern Fokker 50 gradually took over their duties. Under KLM uk, ATR 72s then replaced the Fokker 50s from the end of 1998. You can find more on the Dutch manufacturer at Fokker. How to tell the various turboprop families apart is shown in the article Telling turboprops apart.

Handley Page Herald

The Dart Herald was a British high-wing aircraft with two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops and came to Air UK with British Island Airways. In July 1980 eleven examples were flying, by 1983 there were still six, and by the mid-1980s the type had disappeared from the fleet. A Herald is also one of the few tangible pieces of Air UK: G-ASKK stands in the City of Norwich Aviation Museum.

BAe 146: the jet for Stansted

In 1987 Air UK ordered its first BAe 146s, starting with the 146-200. Later the shorter 146-100 also flew, and above all the stretched 146-300, which became the airline’s most important jet. The quiet four-engine jet suited short runways and routes between Stansted, Scotland and the Continent well. Many of the BAe 146-300s enjoyed a second career at Buzz after Air UK ended. The manufacturer British Aerospace is part of BAE Systems today.

Fokker 100 and the jets of the early period

In the 1990s the Fokker 100 supplemented the BAe 146 on European routes. Before that, the BAC One-Eleven inherited from BIA and the Fokker F28 Fellowship from Air Anglia had taken over the jet role. For small routes there were also the Embraer Bandeirante as well as the Shorts 330 and Shorts 360 with their distinctly boxy fuselage.

Air UK Leisure: the holiday offshoot

In 1987 Air UK founded a charter subsidiary together with Viking International: Air UK Leisure. It began with three used Boeing 737-200s, and from October 1988 seven new Boeing 737-400s arrived. From 1993 the subsidiary also flew two Boeing 767-300ERs under the name Leisure International Airways on long-haul holiday flights. Air UK later sold the business to Unijet, a company of the First Choice group.

That put Air UK in two worlds: scheduled regional service with small aircraft on one side, package holidays with Boeing jets on the other. How the two business models differ is explained in the article Charter flight and scheduled flight.

The road to KLM

The connection to the Netherlands was there from the start: Amsterdam was among the destinations as early as 1980. From 1987 it became a firm partnership, when KLM acquired 14.9 percent of the holding company. In 1995 KLM raised that to 45 percent, and in 1997 it bought the remaining shares from British & Commonwealth. From January 1998 the airline had the name KLM uk and a new livery.

Under KLM uk the focus clearly shifted toward feeder traffic: from the end of 1999 the airline concentrated on about 15 British regional airports with connections to Amsterdam-Schiphol. Routes without an Amsterdam link moved to KLM’s new low-cost subsidiary Buzz from January 2000 or were discontinued, including all Channel Islands connections. In addition KLM uk offered flights from London City, on a codeshare with Cityjet. This principle – many small airports feeding one big hub – is explained in the article on hub-and-spoke and point-to-point.

On November 1, 2002, KLM uk merged with the Dutch regional subsidiary to form KLM Cityhopper UK, and in March 2003 that too was absorbed into KLM Cityhopper. In this phase the aircraft moved to the Dutch register. Today KLM belongs to the Air France-KLM group.

Buzz: the low-cost experiment

Buzz started on January 4, 2000, based at Stansted, and took over former Air UK routes as well as BAe 146-300s from the old fleet; Boeing 737-300s were added later. KLM sold Buzz to Ryanair in 2003, and operations ended in October 2004. Today’s Ryanair subsidiary Buzz from Poland bears the same name but is an entirely different company.

How to recognize Air UK

In old photos Air UK is easy to identify if you know the three liveries:

• 1980: At first a completely blue aircraft with a white-red-white window band. The aviation authority CAA complained that the aircraft were hard to see against a blue sky. Air UK then changed the livery to a blue fuselage with a white tail.
• 1987: White fuselage and white tail, three blue stripes that merge into a stylized Union Flag on the tail. The titles now showed the gap between “U” and “K” instead of between “Air” and “UK.”
• 1994: The last livery with a dark blue stripe and dark blue tail, which picked up elements of its predecessors.

After mergers and takeovers there were often interim stages in which aircraft still carried traces of their predecessors – more on that in the article on hybrid and mixed liveries. How airlines fundamentally change their look is shown in When airlines change their design.

The registrations often help: some aircraft even carried the letters “UK” in their registration, such as the BAe 146-300 G-UKHP. How the British register is structured and how you look up old registrations is explained in the article on British G registrations.

Incidents

Air UK was spared fatal accidents in its history. Several incidents with material damage are documented: in 1984 a parked Herald in Bournemouth was hit by a truck and written off. In 1990 an F27 landed in Amsterdam after a landing gear defect and was written off afterward. In 1992 a BAe 146-300 overran the end of the runway in Aberdeen in wet conditions and a crosswind, and in December 1997 an F27-500 overran the runway in Guernsey in a strong crosswind – all 54 people on board were unhurt, and the aircraft was written off.

Air UK today: traces in the museum

You can no longer spot Air UK live. If you go looking anyway, a side trip to East Anglia above all is worthwhile.

Before a museum visit, always check the current opening hours and the display of the aircraft, because exhibits are occasionally rearranged, restored or repainted. The airports of the old network are also worth a look: Edinburgh, Glasgow and London-Gatwick remain interesting destinations. If you want to see today’s KLM feeders, Schiphol is the right place – the spotting guide for Schiphol helps with planning.

Common mix-ups

• Equating Air UK with Air UK Leisure – the holiday subsidiary flew Boeing 737s and 767s on charter, the parent mainly regional aircraft on scheduled service.
• Assigning the IATA code UK to a present-day airline – in historical records up to the early 2000s, UK stands for Air UK or KLM uk.
• Thinking KLM uk was a new startup – it was the same company with a new name.
• Confusing the British Buzz with the Polish Buzz – one was KLM’s low-cost subsidiary (2000–2004), the other belongs to today’s Ryanair group.
• Confusing Air UK with Flybe or bmi regional – Flybe and bmi regional also flew British regional routes but were independent companies.

You can find an overview of the continent’s regional airlines – from the past to today – in the article Regional airlines in Europe. Air UK’s British contemporaries also include Dan-Air and bmi British Midland; the Scottish Loganair still flies today.

Conclusion

Air UK was not a glamorous long-haul airline but the backbone of British regional traffic in the 1980s and 1990s. Formed from four smaller companies, it survived a hard austerity drive, helped build up Stansted and, through the KLM stake, became the most important British feeder for Amsterdam. For spotters it stands for an era in which the Fokker F27, Herald and BAe 146 were an everyday sight on British aprons. Today you find Air UK only in old photos and in the museum in Norwich – where a close look at the titles and registration is worthwhile.