Britannia Airways

If you flew on a package holiday from Britain in the 1970s, 80s or 90s, chances are good you sat in an aircraft with “Britannia” on the fuselage. The Luton-based airline was the country’s largest charter airline for a long time and the flying arm of tour operator Thomson. Unlike many competitors, it never went bust – it was renamed and lives on in today’s TUI Airways. Here you will learn how Euravia became Britannia, which aircraft defined it and how to recognize it in old photos.

Britannia Airways at a glance

Britannia Airways was a British charter airline based in Luton. It was founded on December 1, 1961 under the name Euravia (London) Ltd. From spring 1962, Luton Airport was its base, and on May 5, 1962 the first aircraft took off in commercial service – a Lockheed Constellation from Manchester to Palma de Mallorca, on behalf of the tour operator Universal Sky Tours.

In 1964, Euravia switched to used Bristol Britannia turboprops and gave itself the fitting new name on August 16, 1964. As early as 1965, the Thomson Group bought the airline. From then on, Britannia was the in-house airline of one of the largest British tour operators – an arrangement the airline kept stable for over 40 years.

The roles were clearly divided: Thomson sold the trips, Britannia flew the vacationers to their destination. To the Mediterranean, to the Canary Islands, later also to the Caribbean, Florida and even Australia. In 1984, Britannia carried more than four million passengers in a single year for the first time.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code BY: in flight numbers and timetables from 1964, previously EY as Euravia.
• ICAO code BAL: identifier in the flight plan and with air traffic control.
• Callsign BRITANNIA: how crews identified themselves on the radio, initially “EURAVIA”.

Interesting for data fans: The IATA code BY outlived the brand. TUI Airways still uses it today, while in the ICAO system TOM with the callsign “TOMJET” has long applied. A flight number with BY on an old ticket can therefore belong to Britannia – or to one of its successors, depending on the year. How the two code systems relate is explained in the article on IATA and ICAO codes. You can find more stories behind radio callsigns in Airline callsigns and their history.

The history in stages

The fleet: from the Constellation to the 767

Britannia was one of the charter airlines that bet on brand-new jets early. That set it apart from many competitors, who liked to take over used aircraft. The most important types at a glance:

Type	Period at Britannia	Use	Spotter note
Lockheed Constellation	from 1962	First leisure flights as Euravia	Distinctive triple vertical stabilizers
Avro York	early 1960s	Supplement to the Constellation fleet	Four-engine piston-powered classic
Bristol Britannia	1964–1970	Leisure flights, namesake	Former BOAC turboprops
Boeing 707	1971–1973	Long haul, mainly to Canada and the USA	Only two aircraft, leased
Boeing 737-200	1968–1994	Backbone on short and medium haul	More than 30 aircraft by 1982
Boeing 767-200/-300	from 1984	Long haul and full Mediterranean flights	First European 767 operator
Boeing 757-200	from 1991	Replacement for the 737-200	Largest fleet group of the 1990s
Airbus A320	approx. 1998–2000	Extra summer capacity	A few leased aircraft
Boeing 737-800	around 2000	Brief service	Returned again by early 2002

Bristol Britannia: the namesake

The Bristol Britannia was a large four-engine turboprop developed for BOAC in the 1950s. When BOAC switched to jets, the aircraft became available, and Euravia grabbed them. On December 6, 1964, the first Britannia entered service with the airline, which had already named itself after it in August. The turboprops flew until December 1970, after which Britannia Airways was a pure jet airline – but the name stayed.

Before the Britannia, piston-engine aircraft dominated the fleet. You can read more about the elegant four-engine airliner of the early years in the article on the Lockheed Constellation.

Boeing 737-200: the workhorse

The first Boeing 737-200 entered service with Britannia on July 7, 1968 – brand new, which was not a given for a charter carrier at the time. Reference works name Britannia as the first European operator of the type. The fleet grew steadily: 13 aircraft were flying in 1975, more than 30 by 1982. For long-haul flights, mainly to Canada and the USA, two leased Boeing 707s supplemented the fleet from 1971 to 1973. Britannia is also regarded as the first charter airline to offer assigned seating and hot meals on board. The last 737-200 left the fleet on March 30, 1994.

Boeing 767: widebody for leisure flying

The biggest coup was the Boeing 767-200. On February 18, 1984, Britannia put the first aircraft into service and is thus regarded as the first European airline with the type. The longer 767-300ER followed later. With the widebody jets, Britannia was one of the first British leisure airlines to offer free inflight entertainment with audio and video.

The 767 made destinations possible that were unusual for charter flights at the time. In the late 1980s, Britannia flew charters to Australia with it, and New Zealand followed later. In 1997, a good third of flights were long haul. The manufacturer of both types is Boeing.

Boeing 757: the 737’s successor

The Boeing 757-200 arrived in January 1991 and replaced the old 737-200s by 1994. In summer 1998, the fleet consisted of 24 Boeing 757s, 13 Boeing 767s, three Airbus A320s and one 737-800 – a clear Boeing airline with only a few exceptions. The 757 was ideal for British leisure airlines: enough seats for full holiday flights, long range and good performance even on shorter runways. How to reliably tell a 757 from a 767 in photos is shown in the article Telling the Boeing 757 and 767 apart.

Thomson and the package holiday model

Britannia is a prime example of the classic model of British leisure aviation: tour operator and airline under one roof. Thomson sold package holidays with flight, transfer and hotel, and Britannia provided the seats. That made load planning easy, and the airline did not have to sell its tickets on the open market itself. The difference from scheduled service is explained in the article Charter flights vs. scheduled flights.

The model had imitators: Airtours International and First Choice Airways also belonged to travel groups, as did Monarch Airlines, which was also based in Luton. For spotters at London Luton Airport, that meant two major leisure airlines in front of the lens for decades.

Britannia’s survival of the industry’s crises also owed much to this backing. While competitors such as Court Line in 1974 or later Dan-Air and Air Europe disappeared, Britannia was even able to take over market share. An overview of the major collapses is given in the article on Airline bankruptcies in Europe.

Britannia outside Britain

Britannia Airways GmbH in Germany

In the late 1990s, Britannia also tried to gain a foothold in the German market. From 1997, the subsidiary Britannia Airways GmbH, based at Berlin Schönefeld, flew package holiday charters from German airports to the Caribbean. When its only customer dropped out, flight operations ended again in April 2001.

Britannia already had connections to Germany before that: The airline operated charter flights for the British military, including from the RAF base at Gütersloh. The last departure there took place in March 1993 with a Boeing 767.

Britannia Nordic in Sweden

In 1998, Thomson took over the Swedish Fritidsresor group and with it its airline Blue Scandinavia. It continued to fly as Britannia Nordic. This lineage later gave rise to TUI fly Nordic – another branch in which the Britannia story still resonates today.

How to recognize Britannia

On photos from the 1970s to the 1990s, Britannia is usually easy to identify. The “Britannia” titles stood large on the fuselage, and a depiction of the allegorical Britannia figure served as the emblem for a long time. The livery changed several times over the years; you are best off checking details of individual variants against dated photos. From summer 2002, the aircraft of the TUI airlines increasingly received a common blue livery, so that in their last years Britannia jets already looked like the group. Such transitions are typical of rebrandings – more on this in When airlines change their look.

Accidents

The airline’s worst accident occurred on September 1, 1966. A Bristol Britannia with the registration G-ANBB, operating as Flight 105, hit terrain on approach to Ljubljana. Of the 117 people on board, 98 died. The cause is believed to be an error in the altimeter setting.

On September 14, 1999, a Boeing 757 (G-BYAG) from Cardiff crashed while landing in Girona. In heavy rain, it touched down hard on its second attempt, and the landing gear collapsed. The aircraft was a total loss; one passenger died of injuries a few days later.

The end of the name: Thomsonfly and TUI Airways

In 2000, the German group Preussag, which later renamed itself TUI, bought the Thomson Travel Group – and with it Britannia. Under the new umbrella, the brands were gradually unified. As part of the reorganization of TUI UK, the Britannia name disappeared in 2005, and the airline flew from then on as Thomsonfly.

The next merger came in 2008: Thomsonfly and First Choice Airways were combined to form Thomson Airways. In October 2017, it was renamed TUI Airways. Today it belongs to the TUI airlines and flies the Boeing 737 and 787, among others – and Luton is still the airline’s headquarters.

That makes Britannia one of the rare cases in which a historic airline did not go bankrupt but lives on in a company that is still active today. The sequence Euravia, Britannia, Thomsonfly, Thomson Airways, TUI Airways shows the development of British leisure aviation in fast motion.

If you want to go spotting in Britain, read the article on Spotting in Britain first. At the Runway Visitor Park in Manchester, you can see the TUI fleet up close.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing Britannia Airways with the Bristol Britannia – the aircraft type gave the airline its name, but it is a topic of its own.
• Equating Britannia with British Airways – Britannia was an independent charter airline and never belonged to BA.
• Thinking the IATA code BY belongs to a current Britannia – since 2005 it has been used by the successor, today TUI Airways.
• Thinking Britannia was a bankrupt airline – it was renamed, not wound up.
• Thinking Britannia Airways GmbH was the parent – the German subsidiary only flew from 1997 to 2001.

Conclusion

Britannia Airways was no glamour carrier but Britain’s reliable holiday workhorse. It started with used propeller aircraft, switched early to new Boeing jets and brought the 767 to Europe. Under Thomson’s umbrella, it became the country’s largest charter airline; under TUI the name disappeared – but the airline itself still flies today. For spotters, that makes it doubly interesting: as a chapter of aviation history and as the ancestor of an airline you see at every major British airport.