Airtours International

If you flew on a package holiday from Manchester, Glasgow or Birmingham in the 1990s, chances are you sat in a jet with “Airtours” on the side. The airline was the flying arm of one of Britain’s largest travel groups, started in 1991 with the MD-83, quickly grew into a mixed Airbus and Boeing fleet and a few years later also flew across the Atlantic. From 2002 it was called MyTravel Airways, and in 2008 it vanished into Thomas Cook Airlines. Here you learn what made Airtours International what it was, which types it flew and where you can still find its traces today.

Airtours International at a glance

Airtours International was a British leisure airline with its headquarters and main base in Manchester. The airline was founded in autumn 1990 as the in-house airline of the tour operator Airtours. Its roots go back to the 1970s, when founder David Crossland took over several small travel agencies in Lancashire. By 1990 this business had grown into one of Britain’s big package travel groups.

The principle was the same as at many British leisure airlines of that time: the operator sold package holidays, and its own airline brought the guests to their destination. That way the group had costs, capacity and departure times in its own hands. The difference from a scheduled airline: the seats were mostly part of travel packages, and individual seats played only a minor role for a long time. The difference between the two models is explained in the article Charter flights versus scheduled flights.

The timing of the launch was remarkable: almost simultaneously with Airtours’ first flight in March 1991, the International Leisure Group collapsed along with Air Europe and the operator Intasun. That freed up a lot of room in British leisure flying, which Airtours, Britannia Airways and Monarch Airlines divided among themselves.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code VZ: appeared in flight numbers, on tickets and in timetables – under both Airtours and MyTravel.
• ICAO code: first AIH, after the 2002 renaming according to widely cited information MYT.
• Callsign KESTREL: this is how the crews identified themselves on the radio; in the early years the spelling KESTRAL also appears.

If you’re evaluating old boarding passes or timetables, the abbreviation VZ helps most. How IATA and ICAO codes are structured is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes. The stories behind radio callsigns can be found under Airline callsigns and their history.

The history in stages

The 1991 launch

Unlike Air Europe, which had started a good decade earlier with brand-new Boeing 737s, Airtours relied at launch on leased McDonnell Douglas MD-83s. The type from the MD-80 family with its two rear-mounted engines was widespread among European leisure airlines in the early 1990s and well suited to the typical Mediterranean routes. According to widely cited information, Airtours started with five aircraft.

Growth through acquisitions

The real growth spurt came in 1993. Airtours bought the tour operator Aspro Holidays of Cardiff, which owned the airline Inter European Airways. Inter European merged into Airtours International in autumn 1993 and brought Airbus A320s and Boeing 757s with it. The fleet thus changed in a short time: in the mid-1990s the MD-83s were replaced by more A320s.

In parallel the group thought European. In 1994 Airtours took a stake in Premiair, the leisure airline that had emerged in early 1994 from the Scandinavian charter airlines Conair and Scanair. With the takeover of the Danish travel group Spies in 1996, Premiair then belonged fully to the group. Later, stakes in Belgium and a German A320 operation were added, which was folded back into the British fleet in 2003.

Service as a selling point

From 1995 Airtours advertised extras that were not yet taken for granted in leisure flying at the time: seats that could be reserved in advance, a choice of meals and duty-free on board. On long-haul flights with the A330 there was also a premium economy cabin under the name “Premiair Gold”.

The fleet: from the MD-83 to the A330

Airtours changed its fleet several times over the years. The main types at a glance:

Type	Period (approx.)	Use	Spotter tip
McDonnell Douglas MD-83	1991 to the mid-1990s	Holiday flights in Europe	First fleet, leased, rear-mounted engines
Airbus A320	from 1993	Medium-haul	Backbone until the merger
Boeing 757-200	1993–2004	Medium-haul, longer charters	Came with Inter European Airways
Boeing 767-300ER	from 1994	Long-haul	USA, Caribbean, Asia
Airbus A321	from the late 1990s	Medium-haul, high capacity	In use until the merger
McDonnell Douglas DC-10	late 1990s to 2004	Long-haul	Considered the last British DC-10 airline
Airbus A330-200	from 1999	Long-haul	With “Premiair Gold” premium economy

According to a fleet overview for summer 2000, the British fleet at that time consisted of ten A320s, four A321s, three A330-200s, six Boeing 757-200s, three Boeing 767-300ERs and two DC-10s. By the 2008 merger, 16 aircraft of these were left: seven A320s, four A321s, three A330-200s and two 767-300ERs.

Airbus A320 and A321: the backbone

The Airbus A320 was Airtours’ most important aircraft for most of the time. It flew the classic package destinations from British regional airports – Spain, the Canary Islands, Greece, Turkey. For particularly popular routes the stretched Airbus A321 was added. The airline kept both types until the merger. How to reliably tell the members of the family apart is shown in the article How to tell the A318, A319, A320 and A321 apart. The manufacturer is Airbus.

Boeing 757: eleven years in service

The Boeing 757-200 came to Airtours in 1993 with the takeover of Inter European Airways. The slim aircraft with long range was very popular with British leisure airlines because it could manage even longer routes to the Canary Islands or the eastern Mediterranean without a stopover. At the end of 2004 the last 757 left the fleet.

Long-haul with the 767, DC-10 and A330

From 1994 Airtours flew long-haul with the Boeing 767-300ER – to the USA, the Caribbean and Thailand, among other places. How to tell the 757 from the 767 in photos is explained in the article How to tell the Boeing 757 and 767 apart. The manufacturer of both types is Boeing.

More capacity came with the three-engine McDonnell Douglas DC-10. When the last aircraft was retired at the end of 2004, Airtours, or MyTravel, was considered the last British airline with this type. The manufacturer was McDonnell Douglas, which was absorbed into Boeing in the late 1990s.

The most modern long-haul jet was the Airbus A330-200, which joined the fleet from 1999. It was the only type to offer the “Premiair Gold” premium economy cabin and stayed in service until the merger.

Bases and destinations

Typical of Airtours was its broad presence at British regional airports. Instead of bundling everything through London, the airline picked up its guests where they lived:

• Manchester was headquarters and largest base – flight operations began here.
• London Gatwick was the most important base in the south.
• In addition there were Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Midlands, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool and Belfast, among others.

The destinations were the classics of British package holidays: Mallorca, the Canary Islands, the Spanish mainland coast, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. On long-haul, Florida, the Caribbean and Asia were added. If you stand today at airports like Palma de Mallorca, Tenerife South or Rhodes, you see the successors there in the form of TUI Airways and Jet2.

How to recognize Airtours and MyTravel

Today you mainly come across Airtours in photos, slides and old timetables. These features help with identification:

• Titles: “Airtours” until 2002, then “MyTravel” on the fuselage.
• Type and period: An MD-83 in the early 1990s, a 757 or DC-10 until 2004 and an A330 from 1999 fit the picture.
• Registration: G- for the British fleet; the Danish sister Premiair flew with OY-.
• Location: Manchester, Gatwick and the British regional airports as well as the holiday destinations on the Mediterranean and in the Canary Islands.

After the merger, former MyTravel aircraft flew for a while in a transitional look before they received the Thomas Cook colors. Documenting such interim stages is a collecting field of its own – more on this in the article on hybrid and mixed liveries. How British registrations are built is explained in the article on British G- registrations.

Safety

The best-known investigation concerned a MyTravel Airbus A320 that landed hard on the Greek island of Kos in July 2007, damaging the main landing gear. The case caused a stir because the first officer was not an employee but paid for his flying experience. The investigation report criticized the training and this model. Nothing is known in the sources reviewed about a fatal accident involving one of its own aircraft.

The end as an independent airline

In the early 2000s the parent group ran into difficulties. The 2002 renaming to MyTravel fell in a phase in which the group had to cut costs and reduce capacity. The fleet shrank markedly: according to information on the airline, the number of aircraft fell from 45 in early 2001 to 29 in 2005, and the number of passengers in Great Britain from over seven million to around 4.4 million.

In February 2007 MyTravel Group and Germany’s Thomas Cook AG agreed on a merger, and in June 2007 the Thomas Cook Group emerged from it. The two airlines were combined: on March 30, 2008, MyTravel Airways flew for the last time under its own name, after which fleet and staff merged into Thomas Cook Airlines.

What came next

• Thomas Cook Airlines flew until September 2019 and then ceased operations with the group’s collapse. The article Major airline collapses in Europe gives an overview of such failures.
• The Scandinavian sister was called Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia from 2008 and today carries on as Sunclass Airlines – the only direct line from the Airtours family still taking off.
• The competitors of that era such as First Choice Airways, Excel Airways and Monarch Airlines are history as well.

Traces of Airtours today

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

If you want to experience British leisure airlines today, you’re in good hands at London Gatwick – the Gatwick spotting guide offers tips.

Common mix-ups

• Thinking Airtours and MyTravel are two airlines – it is the same company, just with a new name from May 2002.
• Equating the British and the Danish MyTravel – the Danish sister (ex Premiair) was an airline of its own with OY- registrations.
• Seeing Airtours as the successor to Air Europe – Airtours started independently, but almost simultaneously with its demise in March 1991.
• Confusing MyTravel Airways with MyTravelLite – the latter was the smaller low-cost offshoot from 2002 to 2007.

Conclusion

Airtours International was a typical representative of 1990s British leisure flying: the in-house airline of a travel group, many regional bases, a fast-growing fleet of Airbus and Boeing jets and the step into long-haul with the 767, DC-10 and A330. As MyTravel Airways it lived through the crisis of its parent group before merging into Thomas Cook Airlines in 2008. Today the story lives on in old photos, in the airports from Manchester to Gatwick and in the Scandinavian Sunclass.