is the charter and scheduled , which is a part of the
TUI Group , the largest tourism group in Europe. TUIfly groups
Arkefly (Holland),
Jetairfly (Belgium),
Hapagfly and
HLX.com (Germany),
Britanniafly (Sweden) and
Corsairfly (France) with a fleet of more than hundred aircraft.
The scheduled side is a
Low-fare Carrier operating services to 20
Europe an cities. The bases include
Birmingham ,
Bournemouth ,
Bristol ,
Cardiff ,
Coventry (CVT),
Glasgow ,
Liverpool ,
London Gatwick ,
London Luton ,
London Stansted ,
Manchester ,
Newcastle ,
Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield and
Teesside (Durham Tees Valley) .
Thomsonfly can trace its roots to its parent airline,
Britannia Airways , which was founded by
Ted Langton , who needed a reliable airline to fulfil his holiday company's charter demands. The airline began as
Euravia in 1962 with a small fleet of
Lockheed Constellation s. It soon moved on to the
Bristol Britannia aircraft; the name was changed and remained until
December 2004 . The greatest period of growth came when Britannia began acquiring
Boeing 737-200 aircraft and the fleet expanded to 45 aircraft. Britannia was the European launch customer for the
Boeing 767 and then moved to an all-Boeing 767 and 757 fleet in the mid-1990s.
Realising that the internet and a changing marketplace (taken advantage of by companies such as
Easyjet and
Ryanair ) was leaving them behind, Thomson Holidays initiated a web-orientated rebranding. He used the Thomsonfly name to include all of the UK flying operations and, as a result, the larger Britannia Airways was rebranded as Thomsonfly in
2005 .
Scheduled operations commenced on
31 March 2004 with four
Boeing 737-500 s from a new passenger terminal at Coventry Airport. Immediately the airline was involved in controversy as a small number of local residents and
Warwick District Council mounted a campaign against regular passenger flights from the airport, which had previously been used for both passenger and freight aircraft. The case is still ongoing, Thomsonfly continues to operate from
Coventry and the outcome seems likely to be in the favour of Thomsonfly.
Britannia Airways/Thomsonfly was the best on-time charter airline in 2004 as measured by the
Air Transport Users' Council and also won the respected 'TravelWeekly' best UK charter airline award for 2004.
Thomson Travel were taken over by the German steel and power (turned travel) company,
Preussag in 2001 and the entire company was subsequently rebranded as TUI AG and together with other acquisitions, became the world's largest travel company. Thomsonfly is a part of the TUI Group.
The name 'Britannia Airways' disappeared forever on
31 October 2005 , when the airline officially became Thomsonfly.com due to the new marketing strategy of the TUI Group to regroup all its airline activities under the same alliance: TUIfly. As a result, all the airlines under TUIfly were rebranded with the name best known in their local market or the name of the principal tour operator for which they operated flights. All the airlines, with the exception of HLX.com, acquired the suffix "-fly" and had their aircraft repainted in the light blue TUI colours with red TUI logo.
Regular flights currently operate between Coventry and
Jersey ,
Málaga ,
Valencia , and
Venice (all routes opened
31 March 2004 ),
Palma De Mallorca (
2 May 2004 ),
Pisa (
2 June 2004 ) ,
Ibiza (
12 June 2004 ),
Amsterdam (
28 September 2004 ),
Alicante (
15 October 2004 ),
Salzburg (
26 November 2004 ),
Lyon (
16 December 2004 ),
Faro (
20 March 2005 ),
Barcelona (
27 March 2005 ), and
Paris Orly Airport (
30 October 2005 ).
Routes also opened from Coventry to
Nice (
22 April 2004 ),
Naples (
25 May 2004 ),
Marseille (
2 June 2004 ),
Rome (
3 June 2004 ),
Cork (
31 October 2004 ),
Cologne /
Bonn (
1 November 2004 ), and
Shannon Airport (
3 November 2004 ), but these are not currently operational.
Flights also operate from
Bournemouth to Amsterdam, Málaga, Paris Orly, Pisa, and Valencia (all from
22 March 2005 ), Palma de Mallorca (
23 March 2005 ), Faro (
24 March 2005 ), Alicante (
31 October 2005 ),
Tenerife (
1 November 2005 ), Salzburg (
1 December 2005 ), and Lyon (
16 December 2005 ).
Thomsonfly was the first airline to establish a base at the new
Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield , commencing in April 2005. Routes operate to Alicante,
Dublin , Faro, Jersey, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca, and
Prague (all from
28 April 2005 ), Valencia, Paris Orly, and Pisa (
20 May 2005 ), Ibiza (
10 June 2005 ), Tenerife (
1 November 2005 ),
Gran Canaria (
3 November 2005 ), Amsterdam (
4 November 2005 ), and Lyon (
16 December 2005 ).
Some of these routes only operate seasonally.
In September 2005, Thomsonfly expanded to offer low-cost flights from additional UK bases to destinations across Europe starting in May 2006. These flights are additional to the Thomsonfly charter flights that are already operated from many of these airports. Services will operate from
Cardiff ,
London Gatwick ,
London Luton ,
Manchester and
Newcastle to Alicante, Ibiza, Palma de Mallorca and Málaga, and from
Birmingham ,
Glasgow and
Nottingham East Midlands to Palma de Mallorca and
London Gatwick Airport to
Reus AB
As of
November 2005 , the current Thomsonfly fleet includes:
based across the UK.
The average age of the Thomsonfly fleet is 11.1 years (at April 2006)
- AUC Crown Awards: Most Punctual Charter Carrier - 2004
- Travel & Tourism Web Awards: Best Airline - 2004
- Telegraph Travel Awards: Best Charter Airline - 2003
Thomsonfly is part of TUI AG, the largest tourism and travel services group in the world, which is based in Hanover, Germany. This also includes TUI UK which has brands including Thomson - the UK's largest tour operator and Thomson Travel Shops - the UKs biggest travel agency. Thomsonfly is part of a
TUIfly alliance that groups all the airlines of TUI including Hapagfly and HLX.com in Germany, Britanniafly in Sweden, Corsairfly in France and Jetairfly Belgium. The combined fleet of all TUI airlines numbers over 100 aircraft.
- ICAO Code: TOM/BAL
- IATA Code: --/BY
- Callsign: Thomson/Britannia
The BY callsign and the Britannia Logo/Name/Device disapeared as of Monday 31 October 2005. It trades as Thomsonfly Ltd now and the TOM flight codes are in action from Summer 2006.
