Thanks for your kind comments - Probably since I joined the charter airline and package holiday industry in 1972 I have always had a close interest in the IT market, the charter airlines, and its origins and history.
Sadly I was working with operations & handling at LGW for AE, one of our main customers the morning they went bust, big shock, very sad - met many crews out at the aircraft at LGW and often flew with AE on staff travel to somewhere sunny and warm or went down route with them to sort out handling issues at outstations.
Intasun Holidays, was one of Dan Air's largest customers for seats 'pre AE'
What came next was Air Europe's undercutting of IT seat prices was that it first waited for all the other Tour operators to place their business with Dan-Air and only then placed its contracts, fitting in with whenever aircraft and crews were available. This meant that a lot of Intasun's business involved mid-week and night flying which meant cheaper holiday packages to sell. This, in turn, was a win-win for both operator and airline.
It enabled Intasun to charter aircraft at substantially lower rates than its competitors, who had to pay a premium for chartering planes at weekend peak times although it permitted Dan-Air to increase its fleet utilisation, thereby boosting the company's overall profitability at that time.
However, the high fuel consumption of Dan-Air's older fleet – Comets, 1-11's and 727's which at that time made up the bulk of its charter fleet against rising jet fuel prices made it more and more difficult to offer Intasun the seat rates at which it was prepared to contract its business to Dan-Air.
It was all fun and games.
Air Europe became a first rate charter airline, using brand new equipment from the outset and provided food and service that were reviewed to be comparable to scheduled carriers.
Attracting higher-margin business from the more upmarket tour operators Air Europe was often chosen, who then aimed to distance Air Europe from Intasun.
ILG wanted without incurring the additional expense of basing aircraft and crews at regional UK airports to operate seasonal flights only or, alternatively, incurring the cost of operating empty legs with aircraft repositioned from its two main bases, LGW & MAN.
This resulted in an arrangement whereby Air Europa's aircraft from Spain were flying German and Scandinavian holiday makers during the daytime, and Intasun's regional UK customers at night. Higher aircraft utilisation and lower direct operating costs for Air Europa were vastly superior compared with Thomson's Britannia Airways, then the UK's leading charter airline, and Air Europe's biggest competitor in the European charter market, this in turn again enabled Intasun to undercut Thomson's prices.
AE was one of the first airlines to see the benefit of seasonal aircraft swap-leases with the likes of Air Florida, and British Airways.
More fun & games....
ILG was a giant really - In-house tour operator Intasun was to become the UK's second-largest package tour operator (after the market leader Thomson)
plus the ILG airlines -
Air Europe (ceased 3/1991)
Air Europa SA (still flying, now part of IAG)
Air Europe Italy Spa (became part of the Volare Spa group, then bought by Alitalia, closed down in 2008.
Air Europe Express
(AEX was highly profitable to the end, bought out by previous Connectair management as Euroworld, then CityFlyer Express which in turn became a BA Franchise, then fully absorbed into BA mainline at LGW to eventually become BA Connect.
British Airways' sale of BA Connect to Flybe in 2007 did not include the LCY operations and fleet of RJ100 aircraft, so a decision was then made to resurrect the name CityFlyer Express, now BA CityFlyer)
plus the tie-up & stake with Norway Airlines to use their new 737's in AE colours for the LGW - Scandinavia routes.
Orders had been placed with MDD by AE as launch customer on six + 12 options for RR powered MD-11's. The airline intended to use these aircraft to operate a mix of long-haul charter and scheduled services, thereby helping sister company Intasun to reduce its dependence on third party suppliers to provide it with often poor quality long-haul capacity.
In addition to the MD-11 order, Air Europe had outstanding orders for an additional 22 Boeing 757-200s, eight Boeing 737-400s and eleven Fokker 100.
Air Europe furthermore had signed a MoU with Airbus for an order of 40 A320 for delivery between 1995 and 1998 with options on another 40 aircraft, with planned deliveries to November 2001.
The new Fokker 100 fleet which I thought were very nice a/c, the first pair came from a cancelled KLM order in 1989 on PH- registrations.
I know we strayed O/T in a way from AE Ops in NCL, but this answers some of the Q's made by posters on here.....