History
The airline was established on 1 December 1961 by Ted Langton and started operations on 5 May 1962 as Euravia (London) flying Lockheed Constellations on inclusive tour holidays for Universal Sky Tours.
Rival charter airline Skyways, one of Britain's foremost independent airlines during the 1950s and early 1960s, had been taken over by Euravia in 1962. The Skyways takeover did not include Skyways Coach-Air, a Skyways associate, established in the early 1950s by Eric Rylands to operate low-fare coach-air services between London and several European capital cities. Following Euravia's acquisition of Skyways, Skyways Coach-Air remained independent until its successor Skyways International was taken over by Dan-Air in 1972.
The name Britannia Airways was adopted on 16 August 1964 to coincide with re-equipping with the Bristol Britannia turboprop airliner. The last Britannia 102 was withdrawn from service in December 1970, and the airline became an all-jet operator.
In 1965 Britannia became part of Thomson, itself part of the Canadian-owned International Thomson Organisation.
Britannia began to re-equip with Boeing 737-200 in 1968, the first European charter operator of the type. Britannia was also the first European airline to fly the Boeing 767, which it added to its fleet in the 1980s. The Boeing 767 was the first widebodied aircraft in the Britannia fleet. In August 1988 Britannia's immediate parent company, the Thomson Travel Group, purchased Horizon Travel and its airline, Orion Airways, which was integrated into Britannia.
In the 1990s, Britannia also began to operate services for Skytours and Portland Direct, themselves too part of the Thomsons Group.
In 1997 Britannia formed a wholly owned subsidiary, Britannia GmbH, based in Germany to operate long and short-haul flights from airports in Germany, Switzerland and Austria for German tour operators, but this was closed in March 2001.
At the start of 1998 the Thomson Travel Group acquired the Scandinavian holiday operation, Fritidsresor Group, and its airline Blue Scandinavia, now renamed Britannia Nordic (now known as TUIfly Nordic).
In 2000 Thomson Travel Group and Britannia Airways were acquired by Preussag AG (TUI Group) of Germany. As part of a wider reorganisation of TUI's UK operations in September 2004 it was announced that Britannia would be rebranded as Thomsonfly. This airline's aircraft carried the Thomson colours and logo, and Thomsonfly became the trading name of Britannia Airways. On 1 November 2005 the company's legal name changed from Britannia Airways Limited to Thomsonfly Limited. This was probably done to avoid any confusion with Britannia Hotels, as a perceived association with them and their poor reputation with holidaymakers could have been potentially damaging to the airline. Thomsonfly later merged with First Choice Airways and was renamed Thomson Airways, retaining the previous logo and colours.
Britannia Airways was featured in the first series of the ITV fly on the wall Docusoap Airline show and is being replayed on Sky1 and Pick TV. From the second series onwards this instead featured low-cost carrier Easyjet.
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