Air U.K. Limited, branded as AirUK, was a regional airline in the United Kingdom formed in 1980 as a result of a merger involving four rival UK-based regional airlines. British & Commonwealth Holdings-owned British Island Airways (BIA) and Air Anglia were the two dominant merger partners.
The merged entity's corporate headquarters were originally located at Redhill, the location of the old BIA head office. In addition to the main maintenance base at Norwich Airport (Air Anglia's former engineering base), there also used to be a second major maintenance base at Blackpool Airport (the old BIA engineering base). When Stansted's new Foster + Partners designed terminal opened in 1991, the airline became its first and subsequently main tenant.
Air UK was a full member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for most of its existence.
Air UK originally was a wholly owned subsidiary of British Air Transport Holdings, a successor to the Air Holdings Group owned 90% by B&C and 10% by Eagle Star Insurance. This made the Cayzer family, who owned B&C, the controlling shareholders.
Following the beginning of the gradual liberalisation of the European Union (EU) internal air transport market in 1987, Dutch flag carrier KLM, a long-standing business partner of Air UK and its predecessor Air Anglia, acquired a 14.9% minority stake in Air UK's holding company. In 1995, KLM increased its minority stake in Air UK to 45%. In 1997, KLM became Air UK's sole shareholder when it acquired B&C's stake in British Air Transport (Holdings). The following year Air UK was renamed KLM UK.
History
Aircraft operated
Air UK operated the following aircraft types at one point or another during its 19-year existence:
- Avion de Transport Regional (ATR) ATR-72 (these aircraft were exclusively operated by KLM uk)
- BAC One-Eleven 200/400 series
- British Aerospace 146 100/200/300 series
- Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante
- Fokker F27 100/200/400/500/600 series
- Fokker F28 Fellowship 1000/4000 series
- Fokker 50
- Fokker 100
- Handley Page Dart Herald
- Shorts 330
- Shorts 360
Fleet in 1980
In July 1980 the Air UK fleet comprised 37 aircraft.thumb|right|A pair of Air UK [[Short 360|Shorts 360s in the second scheme at Humberside Airport in 1989]]
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Air UK fleet in March 1988
|-
!Aircraft
!Number
|-
|BAC One-Eleven 400
|1
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-200
|1
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 500
|2
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 600
|3
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 200
|10
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 100
|1
|-
|Shorts 360
|4
|-
|Total
|22
|}
Two British Aerospace BAe 146-200 were on order.
Air UK employed 975 people at this time.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Air UK fleet in March 1990
|-
!Aircraft
!Number
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-300
|4
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-200
|3
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-100
|2
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 500
|2
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 600
|2
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 200
|11
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 100
|1
|-
|Shorts 360
|2
|-
|Total
|27
|}
Air UK employed 1,340 people at this time.
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Air UK fleet in March/April 1995
|-
!Aircraft
!Number
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-300
|7
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-200
|2
|-
|British Aerospace BAe 146-100
|2
|-
|Fokker F27 Friendship 500
|6
|-
|Fokker 50
|1
|-
|Fokker 100
|9
|-
|Shorts 360
|1
|-
|Total
|28
|}
Eight Fokker 50 were on order.
Air UK employed 1,466 people at this time. Cardiff-based Air Wales had become part of Air Anglia in June of that year.) It was incorporated on 1 January 1980. At the time of its inception, Air UK was the largest regional airline in the UK and the country's third-largest scheduled carrier. It had a staff of 1,700, carried more than 1m, mainly scheduled, passengers annually and had a fleet of 40 aircraft, consisting of six jets (four ex-BIA BAC One-Eleven 400s and two ex-Air Anglia F-28 4000 series Fellowships) and 34 turboprops (including eighteen ex-BIA Handley Page Dart Heralds, ten ex-Air Anglia Fokker F27 100/200 series Friendships and six Embraer 110 Bandeirantes originally part of the BIA, Air Wales and Air Westward fleets). Apart from the four One-Eleven 400s, which were predominantly operated on charter flights,
Following the merger, most of the fleet progressively adopted Air UK's new blue, white and red colour scheme. Originally, this featured a predominantly blue fuselage with a white-red-white strip across the windows and a white roof. The tail was also predominantly blue, apart from the "Air UK" logo. However, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) disapproved of this predominantly blue livery, arguing that it could potentially pose a safety hazard for other aircraft as it was difficult for other crews to see the blue aircraft against a blue sky. To address the CAA's safety concerns, Air UK decided to amend its original colour scheme by opting for a hybrid blue-and-white scheme featuring a blue fuselage and a white tail.
Following British Airways' decision to retire its Vickers Viscount turboprop fleet and to withdraw from its loss-making regional scheduled routes, Air UK assumed BA's regional routes from Heathrow to Guernsey, Manchester to the Isle of Man, Leeds to Belfast and Dublin, and Edinburgh to Jersey in April 1980. Air UK's new, year-round Heathrow—Guernsey route was its most prominent scheduled route serving London's premier airport. (During the late 1970s, in the days prior to the construction of the M11, Air UK's predecessor Air Anglia had launched a year-round scheduled service linking Heathrow with the company's bases in Norwich and Humberside, as well as a year-round scheduled operation between London Gatwick and Leeds.)
Retrenchment
The severe recession of the early 1980s necessitated a major retrenchment, resulting in extensive frequency, route and staff cutbacks. This entailed the closure of bases at Bournemouth, Humberside and Stansted as well as a major reduction in operations at Southend. As a consequence of these cutbacks, ten turboprop aircraft (seven Heralds and three Bandeirantes) were withdrawn from service while the two Fokker F28 jets were leased out to French regional carrier Air Alsace. This in turn resulted in the closure of the former BIA engineering base at Blackpool, accounting for 220 out of a total of 400 job losses. It also resulted in the suspension of scheduled passenger and cargo services to 14 points by late 1981. At the start of the 1981–82 winter timetable in November 1981, Air UK relaunched scheduled operations from Stansted by opening a new route to Amsterdam. This was the first international scheduled service from London's third airport in over ten years. The resulting network linked 20 points in the British Isles and six in Europe. resulting in reconstituting BIA as a charter-only airline and his departure from Air UK along with the four BAC One-Eleven 400s. In addition to the tough economic climate and merger blues during the airline's inception as a result of combining two organisations with vastly different cultures and management styles, the operation of these aircraft had largely been responsible for Air UK's poor financial performance that threatened the airline's survival. That year also saw Air UK joining forces with British Midland to form Manx Airlines, a new, jointly owned regional subsidiary based on the Isle of Man. Air UK parent B&C owned 25% of Manx Airlines, making it the new joint venture's junior partner. (British Midland, which owned the remaining 75%, was the senior partner.) Air UK and British Midland hoped that transferring their loss-making Isle of Man operations to a dedicated, lower cost subsidiary would eventually make these services profitable.
In 1983, Air UK broke even for the first time. This was also the year the airline acquired its first Shorts 330 commuter turboprop plane, which it named Enterprise in a publicity stunt at Stansted Airport where the naming ceremony took place in the shadow of a Boeing 747 shuttle carrier aircraft used by NASA to launch Space Shuttle Enterprise.
By 1994, Air UK acquired several, new Fokker 100 jet aircraft. The introduction of these aircraft led to the adoption of another new livery, the final Air UK-themed livery in the airline's 19-year history. This livery combined elements of the earlier livery with a new, single dark blue cheatline that included a thin, pale blue stripe merging into a dark blue tail featuring the previous Union Flag logo. It also combined elements of both previous liveries by dropping the gap between the "U" and "K" in "UK" (as in Air UK's original blue livery) as well as dropping the gap between the words "Air" and "UK" (as in the airline's second livery).
By 1995, Air UK had replaced all of the older, smaller F27 100/200/400/600 series aircraft in its fleet with additional, stretched F27-500s.
Rebranding
thumb|right|A [[KLM UK British Aerospace 146 with a Fokker 50 behind at London City Airport in 1999.]]
In 1997, KLM became the sole owner of Air UK. was parked at Bournemouth Airport when a lorry struck the aircraft and damaged it beyond repair.
- On 19 July 1990, an ex-Air Anglia F-27-200 (registration G-BCDO) had an accident while landing at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport at the end of a scheduled flight from London Stansted. The aircraft's right-hand main gear failed to lock down while preparing to land. This resulted in a forced landing with the right gear retracted, damaging the aircraft beyond repair. There were no injuries among the 17 passengers and four crew members. (The aircraft was subsequently ferried to Air UK's base at Norwich Airport, where it was withdrawn from service and scrapped.)
- On 31 March 1992, a BAe 146-300 G-UKHP overran runway 34 at Aberdeen (Dyce) Airport after landing on a wet runway with high crosswinds. The pilot failed to deploy the spoilers and ran off the end of the runway. The aircraft was not badly damaged and no passengers were hurt.
- On 7 December 1997, an F-27-500F (registration: G-BNCY) had an accident at Guernsey Airport at the end of a scheduled service from Southampton. The aircraft overran the runway while landing in high crosswinds and came to rest in an adjacent field with its left landing gear collapsed. There were no injuries among the 50 passengers and four crew. (The aircraft was damaged beyond repair and subsequently written off.)
Notes
; Notes
; Citations
References
- (World Airline Directory, 1980–2003)
- (various copies, 1980–2003)
Further reading
- Gunter G. Endres, "Air UK", Air Pictorial magazine, March 1980, pages 88-89, U.K.
- "Air UK - The long-estabilished newcomer", Air International magazine, August 1980, pages 88-93, U.K.
- "Champions of the F27", Fokker Bulletin, September 1982, pages 19-21
- "Third for take-off", Commuter World magazine, June-July 1991, pages 22-24
- Fact File, Air UK News, March 1993
- (Aircraft )
External links
- Official website
- European Commission Merger Decision on Case IV/M.967 of 22/09/1997 (KLM/AIR UK)
- contemporary timetable images