Planned orders that never happened

In 1997 there was

Airtours
Air 2000
Air Atlanta
Air Scandic
Air World
Britannia
Caledonian
Flying Colours
Leisure International
Monarch
Palmair
Peach Air
Virgin Sun

Now there is

Monarch
Thomas Cook
Thomson

On the charter side.

Whatever happened in the space of 15 years,,,,

All these were concorde orders …

http://www.concordesst.com/history/orders.html

Flightmech is correct.

Air Europe started out as the in house airline of the International Leisure Group (which had the Intasun and Club 18-30 brands, amongst others) and had a fleet of 737s and 757s, along with a leased in Jumbo. Their 757s (along with Monarchs) were some of the first twin jet aircraft to fly transatlantic services when restrictions on twin jet extended range flights were first lifted. Like Monarch, they served Orlando from a range of airports, usually stopping in Bangor for fuel on the way.

Following the collapse of British Caledonian, they rapidly expanded the small network of scheduled services that they operated from Gatwick, obtaining some Fokker 100s, and buying a smaller airline Connectair, who operated a fleet of Shorts aircraft (and who following the collapse of Air Europe were bought out and became Eurocity Express who were eventually bought by BA).

Ahead of European deregulation, they also tried to establish a pan European network of services by setting up and / or buying airlines in a number of other countries, who all operated under the Air Europe brand. The exception to this was their Spanish airline, Air Europa, who are the only one remaining.

The airline collapsed at the time of the first Gulf War – yet another airline that fell victim to a rapid expansion policy.

Inter European was a much smaller affair. It was started by the Aspro travel company in Cardiff, basing operations their and at Bristol, but their aircraft were seen at many UK airports. The initial fleet of 737-300s were replaced by A320s, with a number of 757s as well. The airline limited its operations to the charter market, with the 757s ranging as far as Goa and Cancun. The airline merged into Airtours when Airtours took over Aspro Travel. I always liked Inter European’s very distinctive livery.

It is funny how things change – the decline of the charter carriers, the emergence of pan European airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair and it is hard to remember just how innovative the idea of holidays to America were back then.

Here are some pictures:-

The Air Europe 747 at Manchester:

N602FF by IndiaEcho Photography, on Flickr

One of the Short 3-30s on maintenance in Exeter:-

G-BJFK by IndiaEcho Photography, on Flickr

And an Inter European 737 about to leave Bristol for Faro:-

G-BNGL by IndiaEcho Photography, on Flickr

Weren’t Air Europe and Inter European pretty much the same company ?

No i dont think so. Air Europe was Harry Goodmans baby flying schedules and charters out of a Gatwick base. Inter European was a different Cardiff-based operation entirely?

Weren’t Air Europe and Inter European pretty much the same company ?

Does anyone remember any planned orders that never happened.

Off the top of my head i can think of.

1) Monarch 787’s.

2) Inter European MD11’s.

3) Jet2 767-300’s.

4) Air 2000 A330’s.

5) Caledonian A330’s.

6) Britannia 757-300’s.

7) Monarch 767-300’s (In 1990).

8) Airtours 737-300’s (Instead of MD83’s in 1991)

Didn’t Air Europe also order the MD-11? They were going to be the launch (and only) customer for the RR engine. When they went under McDD withdrew the RR engine as an option so you could only have the GE or PW.

Exactly, 60’s and early 70’s

In the early 70’s fuel became expensive and Concorde was generally un economic for everyone including MEA and I doubt Air France and BOAC/BA would have continued if they could have got out of it.

There were well over 100 Concordes on order and once the big boys like Pan Am pulled out everyone else could safely follow suit.

No one could have operated Concorde at a profit then.

Garry

Although all your comments are very valid from all angles, however I must disagree with regards to your statement on Middle East Airlines and the concord, for MEA back in the 60s and early 70s was one of if not the most economically capable Airline in the MENA region with routes as far as South America and off course the many other European and North African routes, however on that faithful day of April 13th 1975 everything for both MEA and Lebanon changed forever.

I doubt it was the war that stopped the MEA order…many airlines ordered Concorde and cancelled because of the general economics of the time.

Many of these airlines had ordered simply because they had to because others had and were more than happy not to have to buy it.

Some orders for types were cancelled because of financial problems with the airline like Capital with their order for DH Comet 4A and Britannias, others because the aircraft itself failed, like Pan Am’s order for DH Comet 3 and sometimes the order went ahead but the airline has been taken over or merged in the meantime like British Caledonian Airbus 320 (which got as far as test flying in BCAL) and BEA TriStars.
Others were ordered but never confirmed like the Cambrian Airways order for a single HP Dart Herald.

This is something that happens all the time, airlines order but by the time it come to confirm or if confirmed, take delivery, things have changed in the sometimes years since the original order and they no longer need the aircraft, perhaps can’t finance of even something else becomes better because to the airlines development.

Politics can also prevent an existing order going ahead.

Airlines are no different to anyone else in the fact that there is what they want, what they need and what they can afford and somewhere in the middle is reality. Things can change very much as they are trying to asess their requirement in 5-10 years time in many cases when it can be hard enough to see what’s going to happen next month.

I think way back when, Middle East Airlines of the Lebanon was planning to order the concord and I believe there was even an image done back then by the manufacturer with the MEA livery but obviously due to the unfortunate civil war that order never came to light.