History
The airline began operations in the summer of 1996 with a fleet of Boeing 757-200, Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft.
Flying Colours had several operational bases outside of its Manchester Airport headquarters, including London Gatwick Airport and Glasgow International Airport. The airline quickly established a positive reputation in the charter industry, with a fleet of newly-built aircraft and new features; Flying Colours were the first airline in the UK to have LCD TV screens in the cabins of their 757s.
In 1998 the tour operator Thomas Cook Group acquired Flying Colours Leisure Group.
Subsequently the in-house charter airline of Thomas Cook, Airworld, adopted the Flying Colours Airlines brand. Shortly after the takeover two ex-Airworld Airbus A321s were returned to their lessor. The airline also maintained the Airworld operating base at Bristol.
In 1999 Thomas Cook completed the acquisition of Carlson Leisure Group, who operated the charter carriers Caledonian Airways and Peach Air. This led to a complete rebrand by Thomas Cook of its growing tour operation. In 2000, Thomas Cook rebranded their charter airline operations as JMC Air, part of a new universal customer-facing brand, "JMC".
Flying Colours ordered two Airbus A330-200 aircraft to begin longhaul operations, these aircraft arrived after the JMC rebrand.
JMC Air was rebranded as Thomas Cook Airlines in 2002. Thomas Cook Airlines UK have announced a merger with fellow Manchester-founded airline MyTravel Airways; the parent companies were scheduled to merge in June 2007 with the two airlines merging in November 2007.
Read more about this topic: Flying Colours Airlines
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“I believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
—Caresse Crosby (1892–1970)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)