AirUK

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AirUK was an airline formed from the merger of British Island Airways, Air Anglia, Air Wales and Air Westward in 1980, all member companies of British and Commonwealth Shipping Group. Originally, it inherited 2 Fokker F.28-4000s,8 Fokker F.27-200s,and 2 F.27-100s mainly from Air Anglia, 18 Handley Page Heralds, 4 BAC One Eleven-400s and 6 Embraer EMB 110s mainly from the former BIA fleet.

The F.28s were soon disposed of and the remainder of the fleet progressively adopted the new blue, white and red colours of AirUK. The original scheme featured a blue fuselage, with a white-red-white stripe with a white roof and a blue tail with the AirUK logo. The CAA disapproved of this predominantly blue livery as it was hard to see the planes against a blue sky so the tails were changed to white. Only one BAC One Eleven, G-CBIA, had received this scheme and by 1982 the One Elevens had reverted to the reformed British Island Airways where they were joined by additional series 500 aircraft.

AirUK's original route network was inherited from BIA and Air Anglia, as the two largest airlines in the merger. Airports served included, Glasgow, Isle of Man, Belfast, Blackpool, Manchester, Exeter, Bournemouth, Southampton, Gatwick, Southend, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Teesside, Leeds Bradford, Humberside, Birmingham, Norwich and Stansted in the UK and Dublin, Guernsey, Jersey, Le Touquet, Amiens, Paris (Orly), Ostend, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Basel-Mulhouse, Bergen and Stavanger outside the UK.

During the early to mid 1980s, the EMB 110s and Heralds were phased out (by 1985) and Shorts 330s and additional Fokker 27s were acquired. Around this time, two BAC One Eleven-400s were leased back from BIA and one of the oldest Fokker F.28-1000s, PH-MOL briefly joined the fleet, all wearing a different, white based scheme that was only applied to these three jet aircraft. Later in the 1980s, Shorts 360s were added to the fleet and in 1987 the first of many BAe 146s were ordered. The first 146-200 heralded a great leap forward in technology with its STOL performance and famous quiet operation. It also introduced a new smarter livery, consisting of a white fuselage and tail with three different blue cheatlines merging to a stylised Union Flag on the tail, reminiscent of BEA's tail logo of the late 60s and 1970s. A second 146-200 was soon acquired followed by additional 146-200s and a large number of 146-300s.

An engineering facility was established at Norwich (Horsham St. Faith) Airport and in 1987, Air UK Leisure was spun off as a charter airline, initially with Boeing 737-200s and later acquiring 737-400s. In the early 1990s, the route network was expanding and the airline concentrated its efforts on London Stansted airport, where the new Terminal opened in 1991.

Dutch airline KLM started acquiring shares in Air UK in the 1990s. Air UK brought many passengers to Dutch airports such as Amsterdam-Schipol and operated a number of Dutch aircraft. Some 22 Fokker 27s were operated at one point or another during the airline's lifetime. By 1994, new Fokker 100 aircraft had been acquired, bringing with them a revised livery, using elements of the previous livery but with a single dark blue cheatline with a thin pale blue stripe merging into a dark blue tail with the previous Union Flag logo. The U and K in "UK" were once again amalgamated in the titles.

The older Fokker F.27-100s, -200s -400s and -600s were progressively retired up until 1995, replaced by three additional F.27-500s in addition to the two already operated and 10 Fokker F.50s. The 146-200s were returned, but the two -100s and the 10 -300s were retained.

KLM progressively increased its shareholding until it acquired AirUK and renamed it KLM UK in April 1999. In 2000 some of the KLMuk point-to-point routes and the 146-300 aircraft were transferred to launch the sub-brand Buzz, which was a low cost carrier. The non-Amsterdam AirUK routes were progressively dropped, leaving only 15 UK airports to Amsterdam.

From 04/01/2000 the KLMuk brand operated Amsterdam feeder routes from various UK regional airports using ATR 72, Fokker 50 and Fokker 100 aircraft. In November 2002 all the UK-Amsterdam routes and Fokker aircraft were transferred to sister KLM subsidiary KLM Cityhopper.

All Buzz flights from 04/01/2000 to 31/03/2003 were operated by KLMuk under its Air Operators Certificate (AOC) until the Buzz operation was taken over by Ryanair in 2003.