I seem to remember that when Dan Air were doing the Airtours work out of Manchester, when the tour company were very local and much smaller, that the airline management refused to do Airtours hoped for long haul work - which was why they used that dreadful old 747 that kept breaking down, with lots of rumours about how legal the aircraft was, as well.
I believe this was the major push for Airtours to start their own airline.