Skytours (pre Thomsons name) and in-house airline Britannia Airways were going to Yugoslavia (Ljubljana and Pula) as far back as 1965/1966; in fact they sadly had the Britannia 102 accident at LJU in 1966, G-ANBB.
Horizon using BUA/BCAL, certainly were flying into Dubrovnik by 1971/1972 if not before.
Skytours (using Britannias) also began package holidays to Bulgaria's Black Sea beaches flying to Varna and Burgas not long after in the late 1960's - sold as an 'exotic new' resort, as a cheap alternative to the Spanish Costa's.
I think Clarksons and others also started up to Romania, flying in to Constanta with Dan Air Comets.
There was a specialist operator called Sunquest, and of course Balkan Holidays.
The resorts did not take on that well with Thomsons, and eventually got dropped.
The food in the hotels was dire IIRC and it was still 'too Soviet' and no one spoke English then.
However Sunny Beach today is a big hit again, with 1000's of young Brit's 'Go-To' for a cheap 4S type holiday; Sun Sea Sand (but today forget by Superjet, just add in Sex - and lots of it)
It was of course Yugotours that had the main holiday market in Yugoslavia, and UK charter airlines simply could not compete with the low seat rates of Aviogenex and Inex Adria.
Sadly Yugotours Gatwick pax were to suffer a nasty crash in May 1971 when flying out in a brand new Aviogenex TU-134A-3 YU-AHZ when it flipped over on fast and hard landing made in Heavy Rain at the Rijeka Airport on the Island of Krk.
YU-AHZ had accumulated a total of only 111 airframe hours at the time of the crash.
All pax and the 3 Stewardesses were trapped and succumbed to the smoke and fire. Seventy-two passengers were British tourists, while the others were Yugoslav.
Four flight crew members and one passenger survived the accident, a young lad sitting in the back row who got himself out of the rear baggage hold;
He was son the of the Ambassador to the UK and he was studying in London.
He had a ticket from Yugotours to go home for a holiday to the family's island home.
The other Yugoslavs on board was Josip Pupačić who was a very famous Croatian writer, Poet, literary critic and literary historian.
He was travelling together with his wife Benko and daughter Rašeljka, who a few days before had an operation in London due to a serious illness.
Josip Pupačić fell in love with Krk and especially Omišalj, and intended to buy a house there for his family - these plans were interrupted by this tragedy in which the entire family perished.
At first, he and his family were unable to buy tickets for the fateful flight. They got the tickets only after another UK family cancelled their trip.
The UK AIB assisted the Commission of Inquiry who pointed to the response and performance of ground emergency services, which could not save the people still alive from the burning aircraft. In addition, it was noted that the number and location of emergency hatches on the Tu-134A did not meet International requirements, and when elements of the interior of the passenger compartment burned, toxic products were released.
It became impossible to open the door from the Flight Deck to the passenger cabin due to the blockage of luggage and Galley equipment when turning over on its back.
External doors and all emergency exits were not open from inside the fuselage, and could not be opened from the outside due to:
- possible deformation of the fuselage; the right wing root had folded over blocking the exit windows, and the fire blocking the left side.
- the opening inside of doors was prevented by fallen luggage and galley items;
- there was a poor awareness of the crew and passengers about the actions and principles of opening hatches and doors;
- it is quite possible, due to the lock system for closing the main entrance door, which has a special latch;
- the lock preventing the opening, in the normal state, of the front door from the outside, was closed by mistake of the stewardess, which did not allow ground services to open the door;
- it was dark, night time; fire.
- lack of illumination of emergency hatches when the aircrafts on-board electrical network is completely de-energized;
- the position of the aircraft on its back, when all escape actions must be reversed;
- and the last: all passengers and stewardesses were left without a Commander, and without his leadership of the evacuation.
It is quite possible that with the correct actions of all of the crew it was possible to evacuate at least some of the passengers through the rear hold opening from where one passenger survived.
The cabin crew and passengers managed to pry open the service door, but by that time the smoke was too thick, and the passengers and cabin crew had succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. The situation was very difficult; The plane turned over to be doused with kerosene, which burned fiercely for over 2 hours after the accident.
Of course, this 1971 crash to UK passengers was the subject of much debate in the Westminster Parliament over the safety issues using Foreign charter airlines and with Russian built aircraft.
Britannia Airways, as mentioned, had summer 737 leases with mostly decent airlines, such as Transavia etc.
They obviously subbed in AdHocs when the program was all going Pete Tong, and they would go with whatever they could get - Pan Am 727's for instance and many other exotic sub charters.
One of the not so good series of summer flights that Britannia subbed out was using CTA Canafrica DC-8's (I think from EDI and GLA to Spain)
We would love to fly on one of those DC-8's today of course for the pure nostalgia, but perhaps not for the delays LOL.
Intasun flying from the Regionals used Aviaco,Transeuropa, and of course Dan Air - with night departures, often at unearthly hours.