Airline Name
Air Europe
IATA: AE / ICAO: AEL / Callsign: AIR EUROPEAir Europe Express
IATA: AX / ICAO: AEE / Callsign: EUROEXPRESS
Also had Air Europe Germany with 1 B752 from Air Europe operated by NFD. No livery difference and only lasted from late 1989 to the parents collapse in March 1991, only IATA was different with it being NS.
Country of Origin
United Kingdom
Aircraft Types Used (from those available in WoA)
F100 (Fokker 100) (7 operated),B732 (737-200Adv) (10 operated),
B733 (737-300) (12 operated),
B734 (737-400) (8 operated),
B752 (B757-200) (17 operated, 2 leased 1 from BA and 1 from Air Europa)
B741 (747-100) (1 operated, leased from Tower Air)
Air Europe Express fleet,
SH36 (Short Brothers Short 360) (2 operated),
Wanted to add at the end, they were to be the launch customer for the Rolls-Royce Trent engined MD-11 due to be delivered beginning 1993 as well as having another 20 757-200s, 11 Fokker 100s and 8 737-400s on order which never arrived due to the collapse. They had also signed an MoU with Airbus for 40 A320s to be delivered beginning in 1995 until 1998 with another 40 options potentially taking deliveries to 2001.
MD-11,
The Gatwick Aviation Museum has the model the airline had (Anyone nearby want to go take a look?
) (The regs of the first 2 were planned to be G-MDII and G-MDXI) (The airlines collapse led to the RR variant of the MD-11 being cancelled),
Why should this airline be added?
Founded in 1978 at London Gatwick as Inter European Airways before changing its name to Air Europe in 1979, this airline operated charter flights in competition with Dan Air and Thomson Holiday’s Charter operator Britannia Airways, who were the 2 big UK charter airlines at the time, as well as Monarch, as a niche had formed due to Laker Airways pulling out of the short/medium haul market and BCal dropping charter flights altogether. Air Europe adopted a rather unique system of waiting for their competitors to set up flights before setting their own competitive flights up and undercutting the competition.It opened a new base in Manchester to capture a rapidly expanding charter market in 1979 and steadily expanded across the UK, flying travellers to Spain and Portugal, opening a new base in Cardiff in 1982.
In 1983 it received its first 757-200 and operated it on its inaugural flight to Faro from Gatwick, with its second being delivered in 1984 flying to Milan followed by several more from 1984 onwards. The airline was also the first charter airline in the UK to operate the 757-200 on a Transatlantic flight to Orlando in 1989, not the first to operate the type as that crown goes to Monarch (See what I did there
).
In the mid-1980s, whilst the airline was happily expanding its charter business and leasing its aircraft out to other airlines including BA, it began to expand into the regular airline business, competing with BA out of Gatwick on routes to Paris and Brussels as well a 9 other competitive trunk routes into Europe. It launched a business class as part of this scheme in 1988.
In 1988, Air Europe took over Connectair, an LGW based regional airline, and rebranded it Air Europe Express to better establish itself as a short haul carrier at Gatwick and compete better with Dan-Air and BCal (who actually vanished around that time) who both had their short haul operations at the airport. It then purchased Guernsey Airlines and merged it’s operations into Air Europe Express, operating its 2 Short 330s and then replacement 360s on routes to and from Guernsey from Gatwick and Manchester, as well as flight to Dusseldorf, Antwerp and Rotterdam. The airline collapsed with its parent but was bought up by the original Connectair management as Euroworld which was then renamed to CityFlyer Express in 1993 as it became a franchisee of BA.
From 1986, the airline made several attempts to takeover BCal, firstly as a whole and then again in 1987 for only its short haul routes to which it was again denied. The airlines worry was that BA and BCal’s merger (Takeover by BA in non-corporate) would result in a monopoly so strong it would kill all the smaller airlines of the UK (And in hindsight they were right on the money).
In 1989, the Fokker 100 was acquired to operate these routes increasing the frequency and also utilised on the Jersey/Guernsey runs, utilising the efficient Rolls-Royce Tay engine and being a lot more efficient than its UK rivals the BAC 1-11 and BAE 146, allowing the newly acquired 737-300/400s to operate on the charter business solely (Occasionally jumping into help). 4 F100s came up available for leasing due to a change in KLM’s operations allowing the type to be introduced a year earlier than expected.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Air Europe found itself competing heavily with Dan-Air on all routes in and out of Gatwick and with BA’s acquisition of BCal resulting in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission ordered BA to drop some of its slots which were split between the other airlines of Gatwick, Air Europe found itself lacking in slots and times in which it could successfully out compete Dan-Air in the short haul and charter business (It too also struggling). One example is the airline being locked out of the two main London to Scotland trunk routes with Dan-Air and Air UK getting the slots, leaving it struggling to compete with BA and Dan-Air on routes to CDG and Europe. Dan-Air was struggling at this time and Air Europe launched a campaign to kill it once and for all, but this ultimately failed when Dan-Air got a cash injection which enabled it to continue flying for another 2 years.
With the financial recession of 1991, it brought to an end Air Europe’s operations killing it, the Express brand and the German subsidiary too. The Italian subsidiary survived continuing onwards, becoming part of the Volare brand (The parents of Volare Airlines and the later Volareweb) until 2004 when it collapsed and was bought by the Italian Government who sold it to Alitalia (Itself nationalised so I’m confused by that). In 2008, it was merged with Alitalia when Alitalia went bankrupt and was privatised with Volareweb/C.A.I Second both vanishing leaving just Air One as the LCC operator for Alitalia (Both remained in theory though to keep slots open in Italy and not create a monopoly, until 2014/15).
Air Europe was a fantastic part of UK aviation history and had many impacts on how a lot of airline operate to this day. It would be a fantastic addition to the game, either as a special event livery or as the full airline which I think due to its modern fleet, it could fit nicely in as a UK airline.